


Catching the Bouquet

by Kaye_21



Series: How Sonny and Rafael Got Their Groove Back [4]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, In-Laws, Love, M/M, No But Seriously Smut, Smut, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 17:03:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5012752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaye_21/pseuds/Kaye_21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sonny gets shot. Rafael doesn't take it well.</p><p>Lucia Barba meets the Carisis. Rafael thinks that's even worse.</p><p>Worst of all, Rafael considers marriage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catching the Bouquet

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that, while this story takes place in the "I'll Be Home for Dinner" universe, it could also be read as a standalone established relationship fic. Reading the previous installments gives more context, but it shouldn't be absolutely vital for your enjoyment.

Rafael thought that it was too soon. That there was no real need for his mother to meet Sonny’s family. That stalling for a little while was the better option. That they could just carry on as normal and keep their families apart; or, rather, keep Lucia Barba away from the Carisis.

Sonny had a better handle on his family, much as he tried to deny it, and he’d made it clear to them that the meeting would happen ‘when it happened’. Which, apparently, had been enough to get them off his back. Rafael, on the other hand, could never rely on such vague assertions to sway Lucia.

Especially since he was already working at a disadvantage. Rafael had waited 18 whole months before introducing Lucia to Sonny, and an additional 6 months had already gone by, and Lucia was getting impatient. She kept asking, and Rafael was practically out of excuses.

Lucia had even threatened – alright, she had casually mentioned – that she was going to bring it up with Sonny again, since he had been the one to ‘promise’ an ‘official’ Barba-Carisi family dinner in the first place.

Well, Rafael’s mother was about to get her wish, because it didn’t get more official than this.

Bella and Tommy were finally getting married, and Bella was pregnant again, which didn’t make things any easier, and Sonny was the best man, and Rafael was invited, and there was a rehearsal dinner happening in two weeks.

What did that have to do with Rafael’s mother? Nothing, except for the fact Sonny had offhandedly revealed – alright, he had excitedly blabbered about – the upcoming nuptials during one of their annoyingly frequent Sunday brunches with Lucia.

Rafael’s reaction time had been regrettably poor, probably because he had been tuning out the entire conversation, as usual. As a result, his mother had managed to invite herself to the wedding before Rafael had even finished chewing that stolen bite of Sonny’s frittata.

And that was how Rafael had found himself having to RSVP for 3.

Sure, it had been kind of fun for Rafael to see his name in cursive right next to Sonny’s on the wedding invitation – even if Sonny joked that he specifically asked Bella to put in ‘Dominick Carisi, Jr. and Guest’. But it had been decidedly less fun for Rafael to pass along another invitation to his mother.

His mother, who, in true Lucia Barba fashion, had wasted no time before criticizing the paper type and the color and the font. Rafael took solace in the fact she had done that for every single wedding invitation she had ever gotten her hands on.

That said, this time there was probably an added motive; Lucia’s annoyance at the fact she would have to meet Sonny’s family at an official function, and she wouldn’t be the center of attention.

Which, of course, was the only reason Rafael had even agreed to it in the first place; not even Lucia Barba could make someone else’s rehearsal dinner all about her.

Probably.

At any rate, Rafael was starting to have doubts about the whole thing. He had been hoping for a fancy dinner, something that would limit Lucia’s interactions – i.e. the damage – to those poor souls seated immediately next to her.

Well, Rafael had just been informed, by a blissfully oblivious Sonny no less, that the rehearsal dinner would be a casual affair. In fact, it would be held in Sonny’s parents’ backyard, on Staten Island.

Now, while that would give the Carisis the home advantage – always useful when dealing with a Barba – it would also mean that Lucia would be free to roam around and meet every last one of Sonny’s relatives, some of whom Rafael himself hadn’t yet met.

Rafael had tried to backtrack, with little success. He had tried to tell Sonny that Bella and Tommy’s rehearsal dinner – rehearsal barbecue, to be precise – was hardly an appropriate occasion for Lucia to be meeting the Carisis; that the whole point was for the Carisis to mingle with Tommy’s family, not Rafael’s.

Sonny had shrugged it off.

Apparently, other than his mother, Tommy wasn’t really close to his family, not anymore. So, Tommy’s work friends aside, the wedding was in danger of becoming a Carisi-exclusive event. Understandably, Bella was going out of her way to invite as many outsiders as she could, and Lucia Barba fit the bill perfectly. That is to say, she was as far from a Carisi as you could possibly get.

Rafael could hardly argue with that.

He could, however, argue that when he had called Bella to ask for an extra invitation, she had sounded particularly gleeful when she had said, “Oh, sure, I’d love to invite your mother! We’d all love to meet her! We’ve heard so much about her!”

The ‘it’s about time, you’ve been dating my brother for over 2 years’ was, of course, implied.

As was the ‘I’m texting my sisters as we speak’.

Amusingly enough, that phone call wasn’t even the worst part. Nor, for that matter, was the text Rafael had received from Theresa shortly afterward – _‘Aw, have you guys set a date yet? Just so you know, I fully intend to object, xoxo’._

No.

By a very wide margin, the worst aspect of the entire affair was Sonny’s best man toast.

Over the previous couple of weeks, Rafael had been subjected to countless ‘jokes’ – and, yes, the quotes were necessary – as part of Sonny’s ‘creative’ ‘process’. Sonny had even taken to working on his speech in bed, scribbling on a legal pad and trying out the ‘jokes’ on Rafael for instant feedback.

Predictably, Rafael’s feedback involved a vast array of disapproving expressions. In fact, Rafael was running out of reactions, having already exhausted his arsenal of eye-rolls and side-eyes.

Sonny acted offended every time Rafael refused to laugh. He maintained that his ‘jokes’ would be a hit at the rehearsal dinner; frankly, Rafael didn’t disagree, but that wasn’t exactly a compliment to the Carisis’ sense of humor.

Incidentally, some of Sonny’s ‘hilarious’ ‘jokes’ included tactless references to Bella’s pregnancy – ‘I never heard of a shotgun wedding where the bride and the groom already have a kid’ – or to a future divorce – ‘Don’t forget Bella, I know a lot of lawyers’ – or to Sonny’s early disapproval of the groom – ‘Everyone knows I never liked Tommy,’ followed by an extended pause.

Sonny was particularly proud of that last one, which Rafael knew because Sonny had snorted right after saying it. And then Sonny had snorted again, when Rafael had grabbed his notepad and tossed it across the room.

For the ninth time in as many days.

It wasn’t Rafael’s fault that snatching that notepad away was the only way to get Sonny to stop fooling around and to start, well, _fooling around._

Speaking of, Rafael had even tried arguing that all the dumb jokes were killing his mood, but Sonny had seen through that lie instantly. Probably because Rafael had been kissing Sonny’s neck at the time, which had admittedly sent mixed signals.

The thing was, Rafael now wished he could hear some more of those dumb ‘jokes’. Because Sonny was out on a stakeout. Again. For the second night in a row, and the fourth night that week.

The team had been sitting on the target for over 8 days, gathering evidence and building a case – yes, for Rafael’s benefit. He was fully aware of the irony. They were staking out a seedy motel which doubled as an underground brothel and tripled as a base camp for a human trafficking ring. Unfortunately, the mastermind behind the whole operation only showed his face once every other week, which was why the team hadn’t moved in yet.

Naturally, Sonny kept getting stuck with the night shifts, because he was still the most junior member of the squad. And, also, because he had vehemently rejected Rafael’s offer to put in a good word with Liv, so that Sonny could work more decent hours. Rafael respected that, but he didn’t quite appreciate having to spend all those nights without Sonny.

It was always like that when a case was about to be closed, and it was the same way around big trials. Rafael had a pretty heavy workload himself, and the only reason he and Sonny could spend any quality time together at all, was because their schedules were usually synced up, with the both of them working the same case.

Except, every once in a while, there would be a case like this one; a straightforward situation which was just a matter of good old-fashioned police work. Rafael would have no reason, or no excuse, to get involved, certainly not before any arrests were made, so he’d just sit on his hands while Sonny would be out working twenty-four seven.

Rafael hadn’t seen Sonny outside of work for 3 days. Well, he hadn’t seen Sonny conscious outside of work for 3 days. There had been that one night, when Rafael had come home to find Sonny sleeping soundly, and had left him in that same position, still sleeping, the next morning.

At the time, Rafael had thought that sleeping next to a conked out Sonny was better than having to suffer through another one of Sonny’s ‘creative’ ‘writing’ sessions. All of the body heat and none of the quips.

Rafael was now sorely regretting that thought. Because, to his shame, he was missing Sonny so much that he had resorted to perusing that damn legal pad and sneaking glimpses at Sonny’s discarded ‘jokes’. Or, at least Rafael _hoped_ they were discarded, and that he wasn’t getting an advance preview of Sonny’s actual speech.

Rafael kept rolling his eyes sedately, as he was going through page after page, but it just wasn’t the same. Not without Sonny right next to him, muttering and chuckling quietly.

Just as Rafael was about to give up and turn in for the night, his phone buzzed.

‘ _Bella, you're a great girl and you deserve a great guy.’_

What the…

Was Sonny _texting_ him jokes now? While on a stakeout? Was _that_ how Sonny was spending all those hours sitting around and doing nothin… OK, yeah, that actually made sense.

Rafael didn’t have to wait long for the punch line:

‘ _Maybe someday you'll find him.’_

Midway through Rafael’s first genuinely enthusiastic eye-roll of the night, he got a third text:

‘ _That’s good, right?’_

Rafael must have really liked that Sonny was still trying to keep him in the loop, even from a distance, because he inexplicably texted back:

‘ _It’s better.’_

At least he followed that up with:

‘ _Though ‘good’ would be a gross overstatement.’_

It took Sonny a minute to reply:

‘ _I’ll take it! Anyway, looks like we’re going in tonight, the guy finally showed up. I’ll tell you the rest of my jokes in person. Love you’_

‘ _You call those jokes?’_ Rafael responded.

‘ _Love you too,’_ he then added, because he wasn’t totally heartless.

Rafael turned off the lights and tried to pretend those texts from Sonny hadn’t totally made his night, though the smile on his face was hard to refute. Instead, Rafael just focused on the fact this would be his last night in an empty bed, since the squad was about to close the case.

Granted, that meant that Rafael would now have to take over, and process mountains of paperwork, and deal with dozens of sleazy defense attorneys, and make deals with which he wasn’t totally comfortable. Still, it also meant that he’d get to spend more than 5 minutes with Sonny, and that was worth the extra work.

~ ~ ~

A few hours later, Rafael was awoken by a buzz too faint to be his alarm clock. He eventually realized it was his phone and he didn’t bother checking it, since he assumed it was Sonny, texting to let him know the bust was a success.

It took Rafael several more seconds to realize his phone was, in fact, ringing, since he’d put it on vibrate for the night. Sonny was calling. That was probably worth opening his eyes for. Just for a minute.

“Hey, Sonny, are you finally done?”

“Rafael, it’s Liv.”

Rafael sat up.

That was a little awkward. Liv was calling to bring him up to date on the case. Obviously, as Sonny was probably still busy hauling perps to the precinct.

“Right, Liv. Sorry, I just woke up. Do you need me to come in? How many arrests are we talking about? Let them all know; the first one who talks gets to be in my good graces.”

“Uh, Rafael, listen. There’s no need for you to worry, but–”

Rafael was still too groggy to fully process that, but he knew it wasn’t good.

“But what?”

“But the bust didn’t go as smoothly as we would have hoped.”

“Oh. What happened? Did the ringleader get away? Arresting him was the whole point of the operation, Liv, I can’t believ–”

“No, we got him.”

“Oh. Good. So what’s the problem?”

“Well, some of our guys were injured during the op.”

“I see. So now we have to add, what, aggravated assault to the charges? This case keeps getting better. How many victims?”

“Rafael.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing serious, but–”

No.

“Liv.”

Rafael considered being more specific, he considered asking an actual question, but he found that he couldn’t.

“Listen, Carisi was one of the officers who were injured, but–”

_No._

“Injured?”

“He was shot. But–”

Rafael blinked.

Shot.

Sonny had gotten shot. While Rafael was sleeping.

Sonny had gotten hurt, and Rafael hadn’t even sensed anything, weren’t you supposed to sense it when someone you loved was in danger, not that Rafael believed in that sort of thing, and he had no idea how badly Sonny was hurt, anyway, if Sonny was even alive.

But no, Liv would have been clear about that, she wouldn’t have let him hope, or wonder, plus she had explicitly told him not to worry, and that it wasn’t serious, which meant that Sonny was probably not dying or anything, he was probably just in pain, lying in a hospital bed, somewhere.

Except Rafael didn’t even know where Sonny was, which hospital, and even if he did, Rafael wasn’t family, how was he supposed to get any information, how was he supposed to visit, how was he supposed to see Sonny when they weren’t married yet?

Why had Rafael wasted all that time mulling it over when he knew, of course he knew, he should have just asked Sonny when he had the chance, but wait, visitation rules had changed, on a federal level and at a state level, at least in New York, so Rafael could definitely visit, even if he and Sonny weren’t legally–

“Rafael, are you there?”

Rafael snapped out of his daze. Apparently, Olivia had been talking to him for some time, explaining something, probably detailing Sonny’s injuries, and Rafael wasn’t even listening, he wasn’t listening because he was too busy panicking and trying to recall when that new federal regulation about hospital visitation rules had gone into effect and–

“Rafael?”

“Yes, yes, sorry. I’m here. What… Is he…”

“I just told y… Yes, he’s OK. He’s gonna be fine. He’s in surgery but–”

Surgery? So it wasn’t just a graze? Or a through and through? Or whatever that was called? Those gunshot wounds that just needed a bandage? Had Sonny been hurt more seriously? What kind of surgery was he having? Where was his wound, even? Where had he been shot?

After a few seconds, Rafael realized that it would be a good idea for him to ask those questions out loud. Another good idea would be for him to listen while Olivia was talking. A third good idea would be for him to breathe.

“Liv, I’m sorry, I didn’t get any of that. Where is he–”

“Never mind, I’m sending a squad car to pick you up, I’ll–”

“No, I meant… actually, yes, that would be good. Thank you. But I meant where is he hurt? Where was he shot?”

“Oh. Like I told you, it’s nothing to worry about. He was shot in the arm with a small-caliber handgun, it’s really a minor injury. The paramedics took great care of him, they helped control the bleeding and they took him to the hospital immediately. Same as the other 2 officers who were hurt. No one was seriously injured.”

Rafael managed to breathe.

For a second.

“If his injuries aren’t serious, why is he in surgery?”

“Look, the doctors will explain when you get there. Actually, Carisi will tell you himself, he’s conscious, I’m told they’re using local anesthesia. They say he suffered some damage to the brachial artery but it’s minor, they think they should be able to repair it with plain sutures. It could be a lot worse, he got lucky.”

‘Lucky’. Not a word Rafael would use.

“So he’s awake?”

“Rafael, I understand your concern, I really do, but I don’t have time to repeat myself, I have a precinct full of scumbags and scared girls to deal with. Carisi will be fine. You can go visit him right now, or as soon as he’s out of surgery. I expect you’ll want another ADA to take over this case?”

That hadn’t even occurred to Rafael. None of it. Not the fact Manhattan SVU had made a major bust, not the fact he was supposed to be overseeing this high-profile case, and definitely not the fact he was taking up Liv’s precious time by asking the same questions, again and again.

“Yes, I’ll have my office make some calls, you should hear back within the hour. Uh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to t–”

“It’s fine, Rafael. I get it. Just get to the hospital. Rollins is there, she’ll give you more details, she was next to Carisi when he got hit. I gotta go.”

Olivia hung up, leaving Rafael to stare at the phone in his hand, his other hand clenching and unclenching unconsciously. That phone call was the last thing Rafael expected. Sonny had literally _just_ sent him those dumb texts.

It was hard for Rafael to understand how Sonny had gone from giggling to himself – as he probably had been, while typing that ‘joke’ – to getting shot, in the space of mere hours.

But then, Rafael didn’t know why he was so shocked. Sonny had specifically said the raid was about to happen and still, it hadn’t sunk in. Instead of texting back something relevant, like ‘stay safe’, Rafael had seen it fit to text back one of his sarcastic jabs. Instead of acknowledging that Sonny was about to go into a dangerous situation, Rafael had critiqued Sonny’s sense of humor.

Hell, Olivia had told Rafael that some cops had gotten injured during the bust, and Rafael’s first thought had been ‘oh great, more paperwork’. Sonny hadn’t even crossed his mind. What kind of boyfriend, what kind of horrible person wouldn’t instantly think of–

The doorbell cut Rafael’s guilt trip short.

Thankfully.

Rafael quickly got dressed and out the door, barely remembering to text his secretary so she could contact another ADA. There was a police cruiser waiting in front of Rafael’s building; he only briefly wondered what Liv had told the patrol officer.

It wasn’t important. Rafael just got in the car and stayed quiet, resisting the urge to ask if they could turn on the siren. There was no need. This wasn’t urgent. Sonny was OK.

Sonny was OK.

That’s what Rafael kept telling himself, on the way to the hospital, as he kept clenching his fists. Sonny was OK. Which explained why Rafael wasn’t visibly alarmed, why he wasn’t dismayed, why he wasn’t losing it.

Sonny was OK.

Except Sonny wasn’t OK. Sonny was hurt. Which explained why Rafael was having trouble sitting still, why he couldn’t think straight, and why his chest felt impossibly tight.

At least the ride to the hospital was brief. Or so it felt to Rafael, though he couldn’t exactly trust his sense of time. He got out of the car without saying a word, and he headed to the front desk.

Just as he was about to speak, Rafael realized the strangest thing; he was having trouble saying Sonny’s name out loud. He hadn’t once said it when he was on the phone with Liv. It was almost like he was afraid to say it. Like saying it might–

“Barba, hey.”

Turning around, Rafael was relieved to see Rollins. She was smiling gently and, for what it was worth, she didn’t seem particularly upset. Rafael fleetingly thought this didn’t mean much, since he wasn’t sure Rollins would be _that_ upset if Sonny got seriously hurt, but then he chastised himself; Rafael always got extra snippy when he was worried.

“Hi, um, is he…”

Rollins smiled again, this time knowingly.

“He’s still in surgery, but he’s fine. A nurse is keeping me posted. He didn’t suffer any major damage, they say he just needs sutures to repair some tendons and one of the arteries. It’s delicate stuff, but nothing too serious. The nurse will let us know as soon as he’s out. I’d be up there myself but IAB’s got me answering questions all night.”

Rafael felt like running to the operating room – or, at the very least, walking briskly in its direction – and just waiting outside, as if that would do Sonny any good, but the mention of IAB made him pause.

Since Rafael couldn’t see Sonny right then, he figured he could get some information while he waited. Plus, Sonny would definitely downplay the incident, but Rollins wasn’t one to mince words.

“Amanda, what happened exactly?”

Rollins sighed.

“We went in, we picked up our guy, we cleared the entire motel, room by room, and we gathered everybody in the lobby. It was textbook. Not even a nosebleed. We separated the pimps, the johns and the girls and we got them ready for transport.

“All of a sudden, one of the girls starts panicking, she pulls a pocket pistol out of her bra and starts shooting. Just like that. It’s a good thing me and Carisi were across the room, that’s why he didn’t get hurt any worse. There wasn’t even an exit wound, the bullet barely penetrated his arm. The paramedics dug it out on the spot.”

Rafael got the mental image of bloody fingers, digging inside Sonny’s arm, feeling for a bullet, and he actually felt nauseous.

“How did she still have a gun?” he asked, trying to change the subject.

Rollins sighed again.

“One of the rookies messed up when he frisked her. He says she was agitated and it threw him off, he didn’t search her thoroughly. And 3 cops got shot.”

‘3 cops’. Sonny being one of them. Lumped in with them, like he was nobody special. Rafael took offense at that, perhaps irrationally, but he didn’t show it.

“He really got you worried, huh?”

Well. Maybe Rafael _had_ shown it. Rollins was smirking this time, but her eyes were soft.

Before Rafael could answer – before he could lie, more like – a young man approached them.

“Detective Rollins, they’re almost done. They’ve established that there’s no nerve damage, which is great, it means he’ll most likely regain full use of his arm. And he didn’t have any bone fractures, either. He got really lucky.”

‘Lucky’. That word again. Rafael had half a mind to ask the nurse why on earth he’d use that word for someone who had just been shot. Sonny would have been ‘lucky’ if the bullet had whizzed past him, or something. If it had grazed him. Not–

“Thank you. Listen, this is Assistant District Attorney Barba, would you mind taking him up to the OR?”

“Sure, I’ll… Wait, you’re Detective Carisi’s boyfriend? I was warned you might be coming.”

Rafael gaped.

Rollins let out a laugh.

“Warned?” Rafael demanded, though he felt immeasurably better knowing that Sonny was clearly awake and talking the medical staff’s ears off.

The nurse smiled and replied, “His words, not mine.”

Of course.

Rollins patted Rafael on the back and took off, as the nurse led him first to an elevator, and then outside an operating room.

“He’ll be out in a few minutes. You can see him for a second, before they move him to the recovery room, but then you’ll have to wait until they move him to his own room. Since he’s under local anesthesia, that shouldn’t take too long. Now, he _has_ been given some sedatives, so he’ll be a little drowsy, but he’s alert.”

Rafael nodded, though he found that he was having trouble absorbing the information. He was feeling more restless, for some reason, now that he was closer to Sonny.

“What are the visiting hours here?”

“9AM to 8PM, but we do tend to be a little more flexible with the rules when it comes to officers of the law.”

Rafael nodded again, thankful that he wouldn’t have to worry about that, on top of everything else.

“Right. Uh. I assume you’ve notified his parents? I don’t know if there was time for you to get that information before the surgery, but I can give it to you right now. He also has an advance directive, I don’t have it with me but I can get it for you, if you need t–”

The nurse was kind enough to smile politely at Rafael’s rambling before he interjected.

“That won’t be necessary. Detective Rollins told me his superior would handle the notification. Since you’re here, I assume you were notified.”

What?

“Me?”

“Yes, Detective Carisi listed you as his next of kin. At least on the admission form. I don’t know what his superior has on file.”

Rafael’s confusion must have registered on his face, because the nurse elaborated.

“It’s not uncommon to list a partner. Sometimes people don’t want to scare their parents, especially when it’s something non-life-threatening like this.”

That did make sense. Though Rafael didn’t quite understand why Sonny was apparently fine with scaring _him_.

“Right. OK. Thank you.”

The nurse left with another polite smile, as Rafael contemplated calling Olivia again but decided against it. He still needed to know if Sonny’s family had been told, but he figured calling Bella would answer that question immediately. If she knew, that meant everyone knew. If she didn’t, Rafael would tell her and she’d alert every Carisi in the Tri-State Area within seconds, including some she wasn’t related to.

Talk about choosing your next of kin wisely. Bella was obviously the best choice. Rafael would have a word with Sonny about that. As soon as Sonny was up for it.

Rafael pulled out his phone; as he was about to call Bella, he realized just why Sonny had listed him in the admission form. It was a little before 3AM, and Bella was pregnant, plus she had a toddler in the house. Calling her in the middle of the night was probably not the best idea.

And what about Sonny’s parents? Should Rafael wake them up for this? Or should he just call them first thing in the morning? After all, this wasn’t urgent. Right? But then, what would they think when they found out Sonny had spent the night in surgery without anyone telling them? Without Rafael telling them?

How about Theresa? She lived alone, and she was Sonny’s oldest sister, and she was almost as proficient at information dispersal as Bella, which was high praise. That was good enough for Rafael, so he decided to call her.

Rafael also decided to wait until after he had seen Sonny, so he could give Theresa more details. So he could tell her exactly what the doctors had said, exactly how the surgery had gone, exactly what Sonny looked like; if he looked tired, if he looked even paler than normal,if he–

The operating room doors opened just then, and Rafael got an answer for at least one of his questions.

Sonny was on a gurney, and he did look a little too pale, though Rafael suspected the harsh hospital lighting was partly to blame for that, and he did look exhausted, and his face did light up as soon as he saw Rafael.

“Rafi! You’re here.”

Rafael really wanted to roll his eyes, if only because he knew Sonny would like that, but again he found that he couldn’t. Instead, he stepped closer.

“I’m here.”

“Don’t worry, Rafi, I’m fine!” Sonny said, and his face went from happy to guilty in an instant. Rafael almost felt like crying, for some reason.

“Yes, Sonny, so everyone keeps telling me,” he replied, neglecting to mention that, up until 3 seconds earlier, Rafael hadn’t believed it. Rafael hadn’t really accepted anyone else’s assessment, he hadn’t really been convinced by all those people who kept saying how lucky Sonny was, he hadn’t really trusted the medical professionals who kept saying Sonny was going to be fine.

No.

Rafael could only believe his own eyes. That’s why he could breathe again. That’s why his chest felt lighter. That’s why he had actually managed to speak Sonny’s name.

Because Sonny was right there. Rafael could see him. Rafael could see that Sonny looked strikingly weak, that he had bandages all around his left arm, that he was struggling to lift his head, that the bags under his eyes looked a little worse than usual, and that he was OK.

Sonny was OK.

“I’m sorry, you are?” one of the doctors asked, somewhat impatiently.

Rafael abruptly realized he was holding everyone up. The nurses were trying to move their patient to that in-between room, where they were supposed to check him out, take care of him, do whatever it was they did in there, and Rafael was standing in the middle of the corridor, literally in their way. Rafael was hindering the whole process, just so he could gawk at Sonny for a few more seconds.

“I’m his partner,” Rafael answered, as he reluctantly stepped aside.

“Yeah!” Sonny unnecessarily supplied, with more enthusiasm than the situation called for.

“You don’t look like a detective,” that same doctor said, somewhat conceitedly, as he scrutinized Rafael’s designer jeans and expensive polo shirt.

Rafael side-eyed the good doctor.

“His partner, as in we live together.”

“Yeah!” Sonny repeated, even more enthusiastically.

“Oh. Well, that’s nice but, in that case, you can’t come to the recovery room. You’ll have to wait until they move him. And don’t let him touch you! You haven’t scrubbed in, have you? You could give him an infection.”

The dickish doctor pulled the gurney back a little as he spoke; it was a good thing he did, because Sonny had been trying to use his good hand to reach for Rafael, and Rafael was thoughtlessly about to reach back.

“Now you forget you’re a germophobe?” Rafael muttered, and Sonny gave him a tired grin.

Just as the nurses started wheeling a still smiling Sonny away, Rafael realized he had been so preoccupied with Sonny’s condition that he had forgotten to ask the doctors about, well, Sonny’s condition.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry, how did the surgery go?”

About 1 second after finishing that sentence, Rafael considered the fact he and Sonny weren’t legally bound to one another. If the doctors asked for any documentation regarding his relationship with Sonny, some type of proof they were partners, anything, before they would release Sonny’s medical information, Rafael would have absolutely nothing to produce.

Maybe Sonny had listed Rafael as his next of kin on that day, but the advance directive still only listed Sonny’s parents. Had Rafael made a mistake in not calling them? Was he going to be able to find out–

“The surgery went fine,” a different, more accommodating doctor replied. “He only suffered minor lacerations to the brachial artery and minor tendon damage. We opted for direct suture repair, due to the limited extent of his injuries. We’ll need to monitor his arm closely for the first 6 hours, and we’ll keep him under observation for another 24 hours, but he should recover fully.”

Oh. Good. That had been easy. No documentation needed. For the millionth time, Rafael thanked his lucky stars he lived in New York City.

“Thank you. Uh, so when will he be able to come home?”

The second doctor seemed to be getting impatient too, but Rafael didn’t really care. He wanted to know when he could have Sonny back.

“Like I said, sir, if there are no postoperative complications, he’ll only have to spend tomorrow night in the hospital, we’ll discharge him the following morning. Since he lives with you, you’ll need to be aware of a few things as well, in terms of caring for the wound, making sure he doesn’t exert himself, etcetera. Someone will explain everything you need to know tomorrow, alright? Now, if you’ll excuse us.”

The doctor politely yet firmly shoved Rafael out of the way as she whizzed past, pushing the gurney away. Rafael didn’t even have time to thank her again, though he did have time to catch a glimpse of Sonny, who managed a small wave as he disappeared into another corridor.

~ ~ ~

Rafael felt a gentle nudge. Still half-asleep, his first thought was that it couldn’t possibly be Sonny nudging him, because Sonny was never that gentle. On the rare occasions when Rafael overslept, Sonny would just rattle him awake to make sure he was up.

“Rafael?”

Yeah, that was definitely not Sonny’s voice.

Rafael opened his eyes to see Bella, standing over him, still touching his shoulder.

“Last time you were sitting outside a hospital room like that, Bella was having Anna,” another voice said. Theresa, Rafael realized. And the rest of the Carisi family, all standing around him.

Slowly but surely, Rafael started getting his bearings. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was a little after 8AM, which meant that visiting hours were about to start in less than 45 minutes.

Rafael had hoped to see Sonny at some point during the night, banking on what that nurse had said about bending the rules, but that hadn’t been possible. Apparently, the rule-bending couldn’t start until after the medical staff was done closely monitoring the patients. For Sonny, that meant after 6 hours. Fortunately, those 6 hours would also be up at 9AM, just in time for Rafael to see him.

‘Fortunately’. Rafael still had trouble with all those pleasant words being used to describe what was most definitely a very unpleasant incident.

At least Rafael had gotten frequent updates throughout the night. According to the doctors, Sonny was doing ‘great’, ‘blood flow to the arm had been completely restored’, there was ‘no sign of an infection’ and everything was ‘normal’. According to the doctors, there was ‘nothing to worry about’.

Which was easier said than done.

Rafael was proud of himself for managing to sound calm on the phone when he’d first called Theresa. For managing to explain what had happened without sounding completely panicked. For managing to repeat all those hollow, calming words others had used on him, like ‘minor’, and ‘simple’, and ‘fine’, and ‘lucky’, and sound like he believed them.

Theresa had taken the news remarkably well; she had gone into Big Sister mode, promising to handle everything on her end, to break the news to the rest of her family.

To Rafael’s relief, Theresa had also agreed that it would be better to wait a while before telling Bella and their parents. Since they couldn’t see Sonny until the morning, there was no reason for them to worry for hours and hours beforehand.

No; the privilege of spending the night worrying about Sonny would be reserved for Theresa, Gina – because Theresa said she needed to tell someone or she’d explode – and Rafael himself.

Speaking of spending the night, the doctors had instructed Rafael to leave, to go home for some rest and come back later – not an option – or else to take a nap until he could see Sonny, because ‘it was going to be a while’.

Rafael had tried to resist sleep; he had tried to stay vigilant, in case something happened, in case Sonny needed him. He had managed to last for several hours, even calling his mother in an attempt to stay awake.

At least that had been Rafael’s excuse; in truth, he had needed to tell someone too.

But, for all his efforts, fatigue had eventually caught up with him.

Last thing Rafael remembered, it had been about 6 o’clock and a nurse had told him Sonny was ‘doing great’.

Next thing he knew, it was 8:15 and a gaggle of Carisis had woken him up. In retrospect, Rafael was glad he had taken that nap. He needed all the energy he could muster if he was going to deal with Sonny’s family for almost an hour.

Still not fully awake but getting there, Rafael got up to greet them.

Gina seemed to be the most affected, though she still looked calm, considering. Bella also looked a little shaken, and a lot pregnant, and Sonny’s dad seemed preoccupied with making sure she was comfortable, probably trying to distract himself. Sonny’s mom hugged Rafael a little too hard, but otherwise seemed perfectly composed. Theresa also hugged him a little too hard, but Rafael suspected her motives were probably less pure.

After the hugs and the greetings, and after everyone had found a seat, Rafael finally spoke.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you immediately, I know I should have, but I didn’t think–”

“It’s fine, Rafael, we understand. Theresa explained everything,” Sonny’s dad interrupted. “It’s not an easy phone call to make, especially in the middle of the night, even when the news is good in the end.”

Rafael nodded, grateful, until he realized he had neglected to give them any actual news. He hadn’t given them an update on Sonny’s condition, because he’d been too busy reveling in those big, warm Carisi hugs.

“What am I thinking,” he said, as he tried to stand up again. “Let me go get one of the doctors, so you can–”

“Relax and sit your ass back down, Rafael. Sonny’s OK, we know all about it. We just talked to a doctor. Who was kind of a jerk. And kinda hot.”

Good ol’ Theresa. Rafael could always count on her to say something distractingly inappropriate to ease the tension.

And ease the tension she did. Dominick Sr. snorted, sounding exactly like his son, as Rafael vainly tried not to think about Sonny’s dumb jokes. Sonny’s mom rolled her eyes, not surprised by her daughter’s comment in the least. Bella muttered, “He wasn’t _that_ hot,” only for Theresa to respond, “He was hotter than Tommy, that’s for sure.”

Only Gina remained quiet; Rafael smiled at her in sympathy. Frankly, he was surprised the rest of the Carisis were in the mood for jokes. Sure, Sonny was going to be fine, but he had gotten shot. And Sonny’s family was always so loud and emotional and expressive; Rafael couldn’t understand why they were taking this so well.

Bella quickly noticed Rafael wasn’t laughing, and shushed the others before she spoke.

“Come on guys, be serious. Rafael looks really worried.”

Rafael wanted to ask ‘And you’re not?’ but he held his tongue.

Gina did not.

“Well, at least somebody’s worried. Sonny got shot and you’re out here talking about how hot his doctor is.”

Sonny’s mom reached and took Gina’s hand.

“Sonny’s fine, Gina. And you know your sisters are just trying to lighten the mood.”

Gina nodded. She was a pretty spontaneous person, so Rafael wasn’t surprised that she had been the one to snap, though he still couldn’t figure out why her reaction differed so much from that of the rest of her family.

“And it’s only natural that Rafael is worried,” Sonny’s mom continued. “This is the first time Sonny’s been hurt since they started dating. Of course Rafael is scared. He’ll get used to it. Like we did.”

“Some of us still aren’t used to it, Ma,” Gina shot back, though she seemed more at ease, perhaps mollified by her mother’s touch.

Rafael was letting the conversation between the Carisis unfold without interfering. He was starting to make sense of their reactions; they were joking to cover up their anxiety. Naturally. Sonny always resorted to humor as well, when things were tough. As for the arguing, well, it was understandable. If anything, Rafael felt relieved the Carisis were letting off some steam.

Until he fully grasped what Sonny’s mom had said.

‘Since they started dating.’

This was the first time Sonny had been hurt ‘since they started dating’. Meaning, in the past 2 years; almost 3, counting Sonny’s first few months at Manhattan SVU, which he had also managed to survive unscathed. At least to Rafael’s knowledge.

And wasn’t that a scary thought? That Sonny could have gotten hurt, before, and no one would have bothered to inform Rafael? Because why would Rafael care about an annoying mustachioed detective who had been with the squad for 5 minutes?

But then, there was no way Sonny wouldn’t have milked an injury for all it was worth; especially back then, when he was still trying to prove himself.

Yes, Sonny – ‘Carisi’, back then – would have shown up at Rafael’s office with, say, a crutch he probably didn’t need, and he’d have made a show of taking a seat, and he’d have stretched his hypothetical injured leg, and he’d have told Rafael all about it, in great detail, ignoring Rafael’s feigned protests and eye-rolls.

And Rafael probably would’ve told Carisi to shut up, just to conceal his undue concern. Rafael probably would’ve made fun of the new guy for getting a booboo, just to conceal his own discomfort. Rafael probably would’ve found it a shame that one of those long legs had been injured. Rafael probably would’ve thought about massaging Carisi’s thighs, just to help ease the pain; to help with the soreness, maybe, to help–

Rafael abruptly stopped his inner ramblings, just as they were turning into daydreams about Sonny’s thighs; lean and strong and 5 shades paler than the rest of him.

Rafael was losing focus. Just like he always did, whenever he was worried. Unfortunately, finding out Sonny had been injured before, perhaps several times – ‘he’ll get used to it’? – had undone the night’s progress. Rafael felt unsettled again.

Was he really supposed to get used to this? Like the Carisis apparently had? Was this a common occurrence for them? Sitting at a hospital, waiting to hear if Sonny was OK? Did they do this a lot?

Rafael decided to find out.

“You do seem to be handling this a lot better than I am. I guess the first time _is_ the hardest, right? But then it gets better? When did you get used to it?” he asked, fishing for information.

“Now that I hear it, maybe ‘get used to it’ is a little harsh,” Sonny’s mom replied, squeezing Gina’s hand comfortingly, a small apology. “Still, it may sound crazy, but the more it happens, the more you learn to handle it.”

‘The more it happens?’ Just how many times had Sonny been injured?

Before Rafael could ask, Sonny’s mom started speaking again.

“And, let me tell you, the first time is _definitely_ the hardest. Well, the first time that it’s something more serious. Sonny broke a lot of bones growing up, playing basketball or getting into trouble with his friends. That never worried me much.

“But the first time he was hurt after he became a police officer? The first time someone hurt him on purpose? That sure was something. We’re laughing now but, back then, he gave us a real scare. Gina still isn’t over it.”

Rafael looked at Gina, who was still clutching her mother’s hand tightly.

“Sonny is a detective,” Dominick Sr. said resolutely, and everyone turned to look at him. “And that means he puts himself at risk, every day. And, sometimes, he gets hurt. As proud as I am of him, that’s not easy for a father to accept. Or for a family, or for a partner. But there’s nothing we can do about it. We have to accept it. Rafael, I’m sure you know that feeling.”

Rafael stared at Sonny’s dad.

The truth was, Rafael _didn’t_ know that feeling. He had never accepted that. He hadn’t even considered the possibility, not really, though in retrospect he could see how naïve that was.

Rafael had been willfully, if not obtusely, ignoring the fact Sonny was a cop; the fact that, for Sonny, getting shot – or, at least, shot _at –_ was probably par for the course.

Rafael had been basically ignoring reality.

Maybe it was because Rafael was never around for all the shooting, maybe because he only read about it in the case files, so it felt less real. Maybe because Sonny was working Special Victims; maybe because, at their unit, the violence was often less immediate and more insidious. Maybe because Liv had a pretty good track record when it came to keeping her squad members safe.

Or, maybe, it was because Rafael had been in denial. Maybe it was because thinking about Sonny getting hurt was not something Rafael could live with every day, so he had chosen not to think about it at all. Maybe it was because Rafael had seen so much in his line of work that dwelling on the possibility of pain was just not something he could handle.

Until reality had caught up with him.

Rafael took a deep breath. He was losing focus again, and he was being overdramatic to boot. His goal was to find out more about Sonny’s past injuries; specifically, his injuries in the line of duty.

Rafael’s mind instantly went back to the last time Sonny had gotten hurt. It was a little after they had first gotten together; Sonny was undercover, and he had been struck in the face with the butt of a gun, by that crazy Murphy person. Sonny had only gotten a bloody nose and some bruises, and Rafael had still managed to panic at the sight of him.

A little.

Or a lot.

At least he hadn’t shown it.

Much.

Thinking back on it, somewhere between Rafael embarrassingly hugging him and carefully wiping blood off his face, Sonny had alluded to being hurt before.

Sonny had said something about having had ‘way worse’ injuries in the past, which was probably meant to be comforting but which had actually made Rafael worry even more. Because, even then, just 2 months in, Rafael had already managed to get overly attached to Sonny.

Also, because Rafael was not at all prone to overreaction, thank-you-very-much.

Sonny had picked up on Rafael’s anxiety; even then, just 2 months in. So, he had skirted around the subject by bringing up a basketball injury from high school. Normally Rafael never would have let that slide, but in this instance he’d been more than happy to let Sonny get away with it.

It wasn’t like Rafael didn’t want to know. He just didn’t like hearing about it. Hearing about all the times Sonny had gotten hurt.

Plus, Rafael _had_ asked. Eventually. Rafael had asked, because he’d been curious about Sonny’s scars. In fact, Rafael realized with some relief that there weren’t any scars on Sonny’s body which were unaccounted for. And Rafael had checked. Thoroughly.

For a moment, or for a few moments, Rafael took a mental inventory of Sonny’s entire body.

There was that one faded scar on Sonny’s right knee, from when he had knelt on a pair of scissors when he was 8. There was that long, thin line that ran across his right calf, from another basketball game gone wrong, when a 14-year-old Sonny had gotten his leg caught in a poorly maintained wire fence.

And, OK, there was that constellation of tiny circular scars on Sonny’s left thigh, from when Sonny was working Homicide and a fleeing suspect had shot him with a BB gun at close range.

And, yes, there was that one large, jagged scar low on Sonny’s back. That scar from when Sonny was a rookie on a domestic violence call, and a drunken guy had ‘lightly’ stabbed him – Sonny’s words – with a broken beer bottle.

To Rafael’s knowledge, those had been the only noteworthy injuries Sonny had sustained in the line of duty. And, the more he thought about it, the more it became obvious that Sonny’s parents were talking about the stabbing.

It was a pretty serious incident, and it had happened a long time ago; long enough for it to have been ‘the first time’. And the whole ‘getting used to it’, that was probably an exaggeration; Sonny’s mom had basically said as much. Obviously.

Still, Rafael thought he’d ask. Just to make sure.

“I don’t like thinking that Sonny is in danger, but I _am_ learning to accept it,” he lied. “Slowly,” he amended. “How did you handle it? The first time? It was when Sonny got stabbed, right? With the broken bottle?”

Of course that was it.

“What, _that?”_ Theresa piped up. “That was nothing! The first time was when he banged his head. He passed out and wouldn’t wake up for, like, an hour.”

That was _not_ it.

Sonny had hit his head? When? And he’d lost consciousness? For that long? And he’d refused to get checked out when Murphy had clocked him, even though he had a history of concussions? Which he had never bothered to mention?

Rafael surreptitiously checked his watch. 20 more minutes until visiting hours began; 20 more minutes until Rafael could go in and chew Sonny out for never telling him about any of this.

But first, he needed more information.

“Sonny hit his head? When was that?” Rafael asked, going for nonchalant but landing at deathly curious.

He was met with silence. Silence, and wide blue eyes. All the Carisis started glancing at each other, exchanging pointed looks and seemingly trying to decide who would be the one to answer Rafael’s question. Rafael half-expected one of Sonny’s sisters to call ‘not it’.

Ultimately, it seemed that Sonny’s dad drew the short straw.

“Sonny hasn’t told you about that?” Dominick Sr. said, a very familiar half-smile, half-wince on his face.

“I don’t believe that he has,” Rafael replied, still totally failing to sound casual. “What happened?” he added, as soon as it became clear the Carisis had no intention of elaborating without further prompting.

Theresa broke first, unsurprisingly.

“Look, it wasn’t even that big of a deal, don’t freak out. I was exaggerating,” she started, only for Gina to mutter “Yeah, right,” under her breath.

“Come on, Gina,” Theresa snapped. “He was actually unconscious for, what, 20 minutes? He got a concussion. So what?”

“ _So what?_ You didn’t have to watch your brother suddenly struggle to form a sentence. You didn’t have to see him collapse, right in front of you.”

“He passed out! People pass out all the time, Gina. Football players pass out, like, every other week.”

“He was looking at me and his eyes couldn’t focus, Theresa. You weren’t there.”

“Again with that? Yeah, I wasn’t there. Yeah, you watched it happen and you’re traumatized. Whatever. It could have been any one of us. Only reason it was you sitting next to him, was ‘cause you made him watch that crappy Hallmark movie with you. I could have been there too, except I have good taste in movies.”

“Are you serious? You were out on a date! And you only got to the hospital after he had already woken up. You didn’t have to wait with us, you don’t know what it was like.”

“I got there as fast as I could! And Sonny was already awake when I got there, which proves my point. You only had to wait for, like, 15 minutes.”

“It was 26 minutes!”

“God, Gina, OK, yeah, it was 26 minutes. Whatever.”

“Whatever? It was 26 minutes of not knowing if he was going to wake up at all! And even when he did, we didn’t know if he had any brain damage or anything like that! They had to run a million tests!”

“Yeah, and he was fine!”

“But we didn’t _know_ that!”

“But he was fine!”

“Yes!” Sonny’s mom practically yelled, instantly shutting down the conversation. “Sonny woke up, and he was just fine. And he’s fine now, too. Alright? _Girls?_ Rafael? There’s no need to dwell on the past. There’s no need to worry. Sonny’s fine,” she finished, with a liveliness that seemed exaggerated.

Rafael sat there, speechless.

Though he didn’t know why, because this was exactly the reaction he’d been expecting from the start; yelling, baseless accusations, overemotional declarations.

This was the reaction Rafael had been hoping for, because it would make his own inner dramatics seem tame by comparison; because knowing he wasn’t the only one panicking would make him feel better.

Well, Rafael definitely felt better, and not just because of all the yelling. Rafael was just as comforted by the fact Sonny’s mom had included him in her weirdly aggressive pep talk. Right alongside Sonny’s sisters. Almost like Rafael was one of her own children.

Wasn’t he, in a way?

Or, couldn’t he be? If he and Sonny got–

“Sorry about that, Rafael,” Sonny’s mom said, her voice at a significantly lower volume. “As you can see, we’re not exactly used to this after all.”

Rafael smiled.

“It’s OK,” he replied. “Though you _should_ be apologizing for being so calm when you got here. I thought there was something wrong with me for being so worried.”

As all the Carisis smiled back, Bella finally spoke.

“In case you still have any questions, Rafael, which I’m sure you do, Sonny hit his head when he was a rookie. He’d only been a cop a few months. He was chasing a suspect on an icy sidewalk, the suspect slipped and Sonny tripped over him.

“The guy tried to grab Sonny’s gun, Sonny tried to fight him off, and they slid across the sidewalk until they hit a dumpster. The other guy, he bashed Sonny’s head against the side of the dumpster pretty hard.

“Sonny was OK, he didn’t even get knocked out, not at first. He got up right away, he arrested the suspect, he finished his shift, he came home, he told us all about his big bust over dinner. Everything was normal.

“Except, an hour later, when he was watching TV with Gina, he started having some trouble speaking and focusing, and then he passed out. Gina screamed, we all ran out to see what happened, we all screamed, you can imagine.

“We got pretty worried, because we knew he had hit his head, so Dad drove him to the hospital, drove all of us to the hospital. The doctors ran some tests and told us that it was probably just a concussion, and that Sonny would probably wake up pretty quickly.

“But then 20 minutes went by, and he still hadn’t come to. The doctors told us that if he stayed unconscious for much longer, it’d be a whole different ball game; they told us we might have to prepare for something more serious. He woke up, thank God, just a few minutes after that. The doctors ran more tests, and he was fine. The end.”

“Wow, it sounds way less dramatic when _you_ tell it, Bella,” Theresa muttered, as Gina rolled her eyes.

Rafael smiled again. That did sound a lot less dramatic. But it still sounded scary. Rafael had turned into a mess – privately, of course – over a minor arm injury. He couldn’t imagine having to worry about the possibility of something as severe as brain damage. That sure put things into perspective. And it explained why Sonny’s family was practically laughing off a tiny bullet hole.

“Thank you for elaborating, Bella,” Rafael said. “I think.”

Sonny’s dad snorted again, and Rafael checked his watch for a second time. 10 more minutes. 10 more minutes until Rafael could escape the Caris… Until Rafael could finally see Sonny.

The corridor doors opened, and Rafael shot up. He knew Sonny needed to get checked out one more time before visiting hours began, and he wanted to tell the doctor t–

Except there was no doctor. Rafael paused literally in mid-air, crouching but not quite standing, mouth slightly agape, before he regained his composure. Somewhat.

One by one, like dominoes, the Carisis all turned their heads to see just what Rafael was reacting to. All they saw was a nondescript woman in her sixties.

All they saw was Rafael’s mother, not that they knew it.

All they saw was Rafael’s mother, who had just arrived at the hospital to torment Rafael.

Or, well, to visit Sonny.

Or both.

Probably both.

Rafael didn’t know why he was surprised. Sure, he hadn’t exactly invited his mother to the hospital, but he couldn’t blame her for wanting to come. Lucia liked Sonny, a lot, and she had gotten annoyingly attached to him over the previous 6 months, and she had gotten understandably worried when Rafael had called in the middle of the night with news of Sonny’s injury.

That had been a pretty emotional phone call. Embarrassingly so. Rafael wanted to forget everything about it, from his own uncharacteristic distress to his mother’s uncharacteristic gratitude; gratitude because Rafael hadn’t shut her out again, because he had shared his anxiety with her. Because Rafael needed someone to tell him that things were going to be OK, and he had reached out to her.

Frankly, Rafael was still getting used to this more involved, more demonstrative version of his mother; he was still relishing in her attention, so he decided not to hold this ambush– fine, this _visit_ against her.

“Mom,” Rafael said, as he kissed Lucia hello.

He could swear he heard gasps from the Carisi sisters.

It was finally happening. Lucia Barba was going to meet Sonny’s family, and there was nothing Rafael could do to stop her. To add insult to injury, Rafael would have to handle all the introductions, and field all the questions, and come up with all the excuses, all by himself, because Sonny had conveniently gotten shot. For the first time, Rafael truly thought Sonny had gotten lucky.

Rafael checked his watch once more. 9 minutes. All he had to do was initiate and supervise a hopefully civil conversation between his mother and the Carisis for 9 minutes.

He could do this.

“How are you, Rafi? You look tired. Did you sleep at all? Have you eaten anything? God, listen to me. How’s Sonny?”

He could _not_ do this.

“Sonny’s OK, mom, like I told you,” Rafael mumbled, as Lucia caressed his cheek firmly. “And I’m fine too,” he added, though he wasn’t sure his mother was listening, since she was too busy stealing glances at the Carisis behind him.

Rafael took a deep breath and decided to just rip off the Band-Aid and start with the introduc–

“Is this Sonny’s family? You must be Sonny’s father! You look just like him! Hi, I’m Rafael’s mother. Lucia Barba.”

Foiled again. Really, Rafael should be used to it by now.

“Yes, he’s Dominick Junior, I’m Dominick Senior,” Sonny’s dad ‘joked’. Like father, like son.

Rafael mentally facepalmed as Lucia plastered a fake smile on her face. On the bright side, at least Sonny’s dad handled the rest of the introductions.

“Thank you for coming,” Sonny’s mom said cordially, beating her daughters to the punch – especially Theresa, whose eagerness to talk to Lucia was palpable. “You didn’t have to.”

“Don’t be silly! Of course I had to. I wanted to make sure Sonny was alright. Rafi isn’t the only one who loves him.”

All the Carisis grinned, and this time Lucia’s smile was absolutely genuine.

Meanwhile, Rafael gaped. His mother had never said that before. Certainly not to him, though he wouldn’t be surprised if she had said it to Sonny directly, behind Rafael’s back.

Rafael felt strangely touched. With that one phrase, he realized just how much his relationship with his mother had changed. How far they’d come.

About 6 months earlier, Rafael was still hiding Sonny from her; he was still hiding himself. About 6 months earlier, his mother was still willing to pretend this part of Rafael’s life didn’t exist. And now, here she was, saying she loved Sonny. Rafael’s male partner. Rafael never thought he’d see the day.

Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe this 9-minute conversation would turn out just fine.

“Plus, I just had to meet you. I know we were supposed to meet under happier circumstances, at the rehearsal dinner in a couple of weeks. But, since Sonny is OK, I figured it wouldn’t hurt if we met a little earlier than expected.”

Lucia’s true motive, revealed. Rafael sighed.

Theresa seized the opportunity to cut in.

“Of course! We’re glad you came. We’ve been wanting to meet you too. Sonny talks about you all the time.”

Lucia glanced at Rafael.

“He does? You never told me this, Rafi.”

“Well, he, uh…” Oh boy.

Bella thankfully interjected, before Rafael could make a fool of himself.

“I don’t know that Sonny talks to Rafael about you. He mentions you to us a lot, because we haven’t… we _hadn’t_ met you until now, so we were all a little curious, you know? Sonny speaks very highly of you,” Bella said with a smile, severely understating her family’s interest in meeting Lucia.

“Oh. That’s sweet of him. He’s a delightful young man. And, I’m not going to lie, I was a little curious too,” Lucia demured, and Rafael had to try to keep his eyes from rolling.

“What, Rafael doesn’t talk about us?” Theresa asked.

“It’s _because_ he talks about you that I was curious,” was Lucia’s response.

Rafael’s eyes widened just a bit.

“We’ll take that as a compliment,” Theresa joked, but there was some bite to her words.

Rafael’s eyes widened a little bit more. He didn’t know what to say, but he knew he should say something, so he got ready to step in and change the subj–

“You should. Rafi and I, it’s just the two of us left. And Rafi’s always saying how there’s so many of you, and how kind you’ve been to him, and how you all support Sonny. That’s… that’s good. So I really wanted to meet you.”

Oh.

“I don’t know what took them so long to introduce us,” Sonny’s mom said, politely sidestepping the compliment but unable to hide her proud smile. “We’ve been asking Sonny for so long.”

“Something tells me Sonny wasn’t the problem,” Lucia retorted, as Rafael conveniently checked his watch for what seemed like the twelfth time. 3 more minutes. Maybe if he stood by quietly, no one would address him directly, and then he could slip into Sonny’s room undetected.

“Right?” Bella chimed in. “It took us forever to meet Rafael. I had to give birth to meet him. I was convinced we were only gonna meet _you_ after I had my second!”

Everyone chuckled as Lucia shot Rafael another glance but said nothing.

“Yeah, turns out, all it took was Sonny getting shot,” Theresa quipped.

The chuckling stopped.

“God, can you stop talking? Not everything is a joke,” Gina snapped, still riled up from before; Rafael actually agreed with her, though maybe not with the way she lashed out.

“Lighten up, Gina! Sonny’s fine! It’s OK to joke about it!”

“It happened _hours_ ago, Theresa. Ever heard of ‘too soon’?”

“ _Girls,”_ Sonny’s mom said, loudly, and she did not look happy her daughters had made her yell twice in one day. “Sorry about that, Lucia.”

“Oh, I’ve been teaching high school for decades. Compared to what I’ve seen, your girls are perfectly well-behaved.”

“That’s kind of you to say, but it’s faint praise,” Sonny’s mom countered, glaring at her two oldest daughters, as Gina and Theresa lowered their heads.

Rafael would have cut in, but he was enjoying this brassier version of Sonny’s mom. She didn’t look it, what with her sweet and unassuming demeanor, but she could be pretty feisty. Kind of like Sonny.

Speaking of Sonny, it was finally 9AM and Rafael had had enough; he didn’t know which was stronger; his desire to see Sonny or his desire to flee the impromptu Barba-Carisi joint family meeting.

The corridor doors opened again, and this time a doctor did appear. Though he wasn’t alone; Olivia was with him. Did she need to talk to Sonny? How long would _that_ take? How much longer would Rafael have to wait? And was Olivia holding a ‘Get Well Soon’ teddy bear?

Rafael excused himself and walked up to her before she could get too close to the others; Rafael knew that Sonny’s sisters had a very keen sense of hearing and, frankly, so did Lucia.

“Is this your idea of a joke, Liv?”

Benson smirked.

“What, this? It’s not from me. Ed sends it, along with his love.”

Tucker. Of course.

“Sonny will be thrilled. Uh, are you here to see him? We haven’t seen him yet, visiting hours are supposed to st–”

“Relax, I’ll just be a minute. I’ll send Fin to get an official statement later. I just need to get a preliminary statement and discuss his medical leave.”

Rafael hadn’t even thought about that. Sonny would need to take it easy for a while. Maybe Rafael could take some time off too, spend more time with him. Maybe–

“While you’re daydreaming about yourself and Carisi on a yacht, I’ll just go in. I’ll be right out.”

Rafael narrowed his eyes at Liv, though she wasn’t wrong; Sonny could definitely use some rest, not to mention some sun. But would he be allowed to swim? Or even sunbathe? So soon after his surgery? Maybe they could go somewhere cooler. But would the cold be better? Maybe it would make Sonny’s arm ache worse.

Perhaps they could just stay at that bed-and-breakfast Sonny liked. Sure, it wasn’t a yacht, but it’d be a nice little break. Rafael made a mental note to check with Sonny’s doctors, to see what they could and couldn’t do if they were to, say, go away for a few d–

“OK, he’s all yours.”

Liv was back. That was fast. Either that, or Rafael had just spent several minutes pondering his hypothetical vacation with Sonny. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Sonny’s family and Lucia all cornered the doctor, to get one last update, and Liv pulled Rafael aside.

“How are you holding up?” she asked.

“You tell me,” Rafael replied honestly. “How’s Sonny holding up?”

“He’s fine. I’m pretty sure was expecting you, so he was a little disappointed to see me, but the teddy bear cheered him up. Go in, see for yourself. I’ll call you later.”

Rafael smiled at Olivia’s retreating form and headed for Sonny’s room.

Except Sonny’s parents had the same idea, naturally, and they walked up right behind Rafael, crowding the door.

Rafael stood there, his hand hovering over the door handle; just a few feet separated him from Sonny, and Rafael had to resist the urge to tell Sonny’s parents to back off.

Yes, Sonny was their son and, yes, they had every right to see him. Rafael just needed some time with him first. It was bad enough that Liv had cut the line. Plus, Sonny’s parents had just gotten there. Rafael had been waiting for hours, he had waited all night, and he couldn’t wait any long–

“You go right ahead, Rafael. We’ll give you a few minutes,” Dominick Sr. said.

Oh.

“Thank you,” Rafael muttered, and he went in.

~ ~ ~

Sonny was sitting up. For some reason, that one simple thing instantly made Rafael feel better.

Sonny looked stronger, like he didn’t even need to be in that hospital bed, like he was just sitting there. All that was missing was one of Sonny’s books, or that dumb legal pad, and Rafael could almost believe that Sonny was relaxing in their bedroom. The only thing giving it away was the appallingly low thread count of the sheets.

That and the bandages.

Rafael’s eyes were drawn to Sonny’s left arm, wrapped tightly in gauze. He felt a strange impulse to pull at the dressing, to see what was underneath, to see the damage with his own eyes, to see how big Sonny’s wound was, to touch it, to feel Sonny’s broken skin, to try t–

“Doc says it’s barely gonna leave a mark.”

Rafael looked up, at Sonny’s face, for the first time.

Sonny was smiling.

“Hey Rafi.”

Like nothing had ever happened.

Sonny scooted over, to make room for Rafael on his narrow bed. Rafael exhaled and sat as close to Sonny as he could, his hip up against Sonny’s thigh. Rafael rubbed Sonny’s knee, ran his hand up Sonny’s side, pressed his palm on Sonny’s chest, felt Sonny’s heartbeat.

For a while.

Sonny just kept smiling.

Rafael kept looking at him.

Sonny looked a little tired, still, and a little older, somehow, but his eyes hadn’t dimmed. He looked perfectly calm, happy even; he didn’t look upset at all, he didn’t look guilty at all. Rafael supposed the previous night’s bout of guilt had been a byproduct of the sedatives, and he felt relief. The last thing Rafael needed was for Sonny to feel bad for having worried him.

After all, this wasn’t Sonny’s fault. These things happened, apparently, and Rafael really _would_ have to get used t–

“You gonna say anything, counselor?”

Sonny was smirking. Rafael scoffed, though he suspected the effect was somewhat diminished by the fact he still had his hand on Sonny’s chest.

“ _Hello,_ Sonny.”

“Hello? That’s all I get for getting shot?”

Seriously? This whole ‘joking to lighten the mood’ thing was getting old. Rafael almost wished Gina was in the room with them; she would have put Sonny in his place.

Unfortunately, Rafael was still a little too shaken up to properly scold Sonny, so he just pulled his hand away. Or he tried to, because Sonny grabbed it and held it in place, squeezing at Rafael’s wrist.

“Don’t. I’m sorry, no jokes. I know you were worried.”

Wasn’t that an understatement, thought Rafael, as he traced Sonny’s clavicle with his thumb.

“You do? How? Did Bella text you? Or was it Theresa?”

“Actually, it was the Sarge.”

_Of course._

Rafael rolled his eyes, and Sonny’s smile got even wider.

“I wouldn’t be smiling if I were you, Sonny. Just so you know, my mother is out there right now, and she’s talking to your family, _unsupervised,_ telling them God knows what. And your sisters are being rowdier than usual. I don’t think I’ve ever seen your mom yell before.”

There. That would surely wipe that little self-satisfied smile off Sonny’s face. Yes, Rafael had gotten worried. That didn’t mean Sonny had to gloat, or tease Rafael about it.

Indeed, Sonny’s cocky grin was replaced by a small frown.

“You called your mom?” Sonny asked, and he looked surprised, almost upset.

Finally. Rafael wasn’t the only one who understood the potentially catastrophic implications of the first ever Barba-Carisi meeting. Carisi-Barba? Or Barba-Car–

“I thought the Sarge was messing with me, I didn’t think you… They told you I was OK, right? That the bullet barely did any damage? They basically gave me some stitches, just, you know, on the inside of my arm. It’s nothing. You… I told Rollins, she was supposed to tell you not to worry. I’m fine, Rafi.”

Dammit.

As always, Sonny had seen right through Rafael and his subpar attempts at deflection. Rafael had brought up his mother’s visit to avoid talking about how worried he’d been, how worried he still was.

As always, Sonny had zeroed in on the most pertinent detail. Rafael had been worried enough to call Lucia. Obviously. How else would she have known? Rafael had called her, in a state of semi-panic, and he had told her everything, and he had even hyperventilated a little, offsetting his earlier, calmer phone call to Theresa, and he had totally overreacted, and Sonny knew it.

Rafael sighed.

“I know you’re fine, Sonny. It’s not like you passed out and stayed unconscious for 26 minutes.”

Sonny’s eyes got comically wide.

“Wh… Did Gina tell you about that? Don’t listen to her; she’s a worrier, even more than I am. Even more than _you_ are. It was just a concussion. I woke up and I was fine. I mean, I did have insomnia for, like, 4 months afterwards. But, other than that, I was fine. No brain damage.”

Sonny looked at Rafael eagerly, and when he realized no response was forthcoming he frowned some more.

“What, you gonna let that drop? No comeback? No, like, ‘how could they tell’?”

More tactless jokes. Great.

“Sorry if I’m not amused by the fact you kept this from me, Sonny.”

Sonny stopped frowning; instead, he narrowed his eyes.

“ _Wow._ Nice try, Rafi, bringing that up. You almost had me. But you’re not getting out of this. Were you really worried?”

Dammit.

Another deflection tactic, failed. Rafael genuinely thought the ‘you never told me about your concussion’ card would have yielded better results, but Sonny knew him too well. And Sonny wouldn’t quit until Rafael gave him an honest answer.

“It’s not every day that you get shot, Sonny. Yes, I was worried. And yes, I know you’re fine. Just. I need a minute. Before I can believe that.”

Nodding, Sonny reached for Rafael; caressed his forearm, then his shoulder, tried to reach for Rafael’s neck but couldn’t.

Rafael didn’t move.

“Come on, Rafi, I can’t lean forward, work with me here.”

Rafael exhaled as Sonny grabbed his shirt sleeve and tugged at it feebly.

Cautiously, far too cautiously, Rafael leaned in. He put his hands on either side of Sonny’s waist and held himself up, careful not to press down on Sonny at all. As soon as he got within reach, he felt Sonny’s hand on his neck, pulling him even closer.

From this close, Rafael could see that Sonny had dark circles under his eyes; that Sonny’s lips were a little dry. From this close, Rafael could–

From this close, _Sonny_ could kiss Rafael.

It was strange, not having Sonny all over him for once. Rafael didn’t think he’d ever kissed Sonny before without Sonny’s hands blindly grasping at him, squeezing random parts of him. Rafael could feel Sonny’s fingers, resting on the nape of his neck, but that was all he could feel.

No, that wasn’t true. Rafael could also feel Sonny’s lips, sliding between his own; Sonny’s tongue, brushing against his. Rafael could feel the warmth emanating from Sonny’s body; Sonny’s thighs, shifting toward him. Rafael could feel the coarse hospital blanket, bunched up in his hand, where he was gripping it tightly, too afraid to clutch at Sonny, like he really wanted.

After a few moments, Rafael realized that kissing a mostly immobile Sonny had its perks, too. Most of the time Sonny would try to pull away from their kisses first, usually to say something ‘funny’, namely to be a smartass, and Rafael would always have to pull him back in with a sigh. Now?

Now Sonny couldn’t pull away if he tried.

Not that he was trying to; Sonny had a pretty good hold on Rafael’s neck, one Rafael himself would be proud of, and he was kissing Rafael, over and over, and he was showing no intention of stopping. It was obvious that Sonny was being more attentive on purpose, to ease Rafael’s worries, but Rafael didn’t mind.

Unfortunately, a knock on the door interrupted their kiss far too soon.

“Are you boys decent?” Sonny’s dad ‘joked’ before coming in, all the Carisis and Lucia right behind him, and Rafael groaned. His mother was right there, for crying out loud, and Sonny’s dad had met her mere moments earlier. What was it with the Carisis and inappropriate jokes?

Sonny snorted.

Rafael had missed that annoying sound more than he was willing to admit, so he gave Sonny one more kiss, right on the lips, just because.

Sonny kissed back, like he always did, but then he gave Rafael a confused look. Rafael couldn’t figure out why; not until Sonny’s eyes flitted over to Lucia.

_Oh._

It was true; to his shame, Rafael had never been comfortable with public displays of affection around his mother. Not even after she had gotten to know Sonny, not even after she had come to like him.

Some things were harder than they seemed, some habits harder to shake after so many years. Sonny had never pressured Rafael, had never broached the subject, except to say that he understood. Even when Rafael himself didn’t.

Well, Sonny had just gotten shot, and he’d just had surgery, and he was in the hospital, and Rafael wanted to kiss him, and Lucia would just have to deal with it.

In fact, going by her fond smile, Lucia was dealing with it just fine. And wasn’t that something?

Rafael grudgingly got off the bed and watched as Sonny got some more kisses, this time from his family, and even a few tentative hugs.

Dominick Sr. patted Sonny’s calf, rubbed Sonny’s foot a little, but he didn’t step any closer. The spot right next to Sonny was reserved for Sonny’s mom; she caressed Sonny’s good shoulder and she smiled comfortingly, as if to soothe him. Which was impressive, since it was obvious to Rafael that _she_ was the one finding comfort, in looking at her son. In seeing that Sonny was OK.

Or maybe Rafael was projecting.

Theresa came next. She whispered something to Sonny, too quietly for Rafael to hear, and then Sonny glanced at him, eyes bright. Rafael did _not_ want to know. Then she kissed Sonny’s forehead, and in that one instant Rafael knew that she had been more worried than she let on; because Sonny was her baby brother, and maybe Theresa was acting tough, but that was mostly to distract her younger, more sensitive sisters.

Speaking of, Bella held Sonny’s hand and barely had time to look at him before he started asking about her, and about the baby, and about Anna. Bella fondly rolled her eyes as she reassured Sonny that she was fine, and that the baby had just kicked, and that Anna was safe, at home with Tommy’s mom; because Sonny took his uncle duties very seriously, even with a hole in his arm.

Gina was the only one who went all in and gave Sonny a full-fledged hug, lasting several seconds. Sonny didn’t complain. He just hugged her back and whispered, “I’m fine, Gina”, in a pacifying tone, like he was talking to a 5-year-old; like he was talking to Rafael.

Lucia was the last to approach the bed. She caressed Sonny’s cheek, just like she always caressed Rafael’s cheek, vigorously but fondly, and Sonny smiled at her, all crinkly-eyed, and he thanked her for being there, and Rafael got something in his eye.

Some dust, probably.

Annoyed as he was to have to share Sonny, to have to stand in the corner while Sonny’s tiny, thankfully single, hospital room was jam-packed with visitors, Rafael couldn’t deny that it was heartening to watch Sonny surrounded by family.

And, yes, Rafael was including Lucia in Sonny’s ‘family’, if only because she clearly wanted to be included, and wasn’t that what family was all about?

Several minutes later, after Sonny had taken Theresa to task for telling Rafael about the concussion, and after Sonny and Rafael’s mothers had become fast friends, apparently, there was another knock on the door.

The hot dickish doctor from before was back, and he really wasn’t that hot, and Rafael hoped that whatever examination he intended to perform could be done with an audience, because leaving Sonny again was not an option. Rafael had barely seen Sonny, they’d only spent a few minutes alone, and they had barely talk–

“I’m going to have to ask the visitors to step out for a moment, I’ll need to discuss a few practical matters with the patient.”

Great.

“Hey, doc, tell my sisters here that I’m fine, will you? And that I’ll be up and running in time for this one’s wedding in two weeks? I got a best man speech they just gotta hear!”

Rafael couldn’t help a double-take, which Sonny seemed to find very amusing.

“Tell them Rafi, my jokes are great, right?”

Rafael paused. For more than a few seconds. As everyone watched in anticipation.

“You just got shot, so I’m going to indulge you and say yes. But we all know the truth.”

It was Theresa who snorted this time, while Bella chuckled and Gina gasped and lightly slapped Rafael’s arm in reproach. As for Sonny, he grinned the widest little grin. Like he was happy Rafael had joined in the fun; like he knew that Rafael was no longer worried to death.

Maybe there was something to this ‘joking to relieve the tension’ thing after all.

“Alright, are you done?” the doctor said, earning multiple side-eyes. “You can see him again in a few minutes. Come on, let’s go.”

Everyone started walking toward the door, Rafael being the last one, not to mention the most reluctant.

“He can’t stay?” Sonny asked.

The doctor didn’t even look up from his chart.

“Who’s _he?”_

“Rafael Barba. I put him down as my… uh.”

Sonny paused before he could say ‘next of kin’. Something they had never discussed, by the way. Which Sonny was very well aware of, going by the apologetic look on his face.

Rafael smiled at Sonny despite himself. The truth was, he didn’t mind being listed as Sonny’s next of kin. In fact, he kind of liked it.

The doctor finally looked up, presumably after finding Rafael’s name on the chart.

“Sure, he c… Oh, he’s the guy who lives with you, right? Yeah, he can stay. He needs to hear this too, I don’t want to have to say it twice.”

Rafael was too happy to hear he could stay with Sonny to properly react to the doctor’s poor bedside manner. He supposed the doctor was less formal because Sonny was a cop, but still, there should be a limit to casualness.

At any rate, Rafael stepped closer to the bed, until Sonny reached for his hand and held it, squeezing tightly, more for Rafael’s benefit than for Sonny’s own. Sonny’s touch felt sturdy, strong, like it always did. Rafael could see the wiry muscles on his arm, flexing. The tendons in his skinny forearm, shifting.

But that was Sonny’s right arm; Sonny’s uninjured arm. His left arm was a different story.

Sonny’s left arm was all covered up in bandages, and Sonny hadn’t moved it, not even a little, the entire time Rafael had been in the room, hadn’t so much as clenched his fist; and Sonny clearly had trouble turning his torso as well, because his left shoulder was probably sore too, from the surgery, and he was probably in pain, no, he was definitely in pain, because he had winced when Gina had practically bear hugged him, and was Sonny taking painkillers? Did he need more? Was he putting on a brave face? Should Rafael ask a nurse to adjust the dos–

“You’re getting this, Rafi? They have me on pain killers and I can’t exactly retain a lot of information right now.”

Oops.

Rafael stood up straighter and tried to pay attention. Rafael actually felt guilty, and tried to come up with a polite way to ask the annoying doctor to repeat, well, everything he had said, because this was important, because Rafael needed to know these things, because he needed to help Sonny, because Sonny was relying on him to–

Sonny squeezed Rafael’s hand again and grinned.

Of course.

Sonny was teasing him, having clearly noticed that Rafael was zoning out and hadn’t listened to a word the doctor had said.

Rafael didn’t know what had come over him. Normally he would be listening carefully, and asking questions, and maybe even taking notes, and he’d be researching Sonny’s injury online, and he’d be calling his doctor friends for second and third opinions.

Instead, Rafael was just sitting there, idly caressing Sonny’s hand with his thumb and trying to ignore the fact there was currently a bullet hole in Sonny’s arm. Because denial had worked out so well for Rafael in the past.

“So, doc, how soon can I resume more strenuous activities, if you catch my drift?”

Rafael had clearly picked a bad time to start paying attention, because Sonny was wiggling his eyebrows and smirking suggestively and was this seriously the man Rafael wanted to spend the rest of his life with?

Apparently so.

All Rafael could do was glare, as Sonny feigned obliviousness.

“What? Like you don’t want to know?”

“But did it have to be your first question?” Rafael deadpanned, and Sonny grinned again.

Sonny grinned, like he always did, excitement etched on his face. Sonny was eager, still, 2 years in; as eager today as he’d been the first time he’d laid his hands on Rafael.

Since that almost disastrous date-turned-weekend sleepover, when Rafael had flown off the handle because he thought he was never going to get a chance to feel those hands on him, those hands that were always in motion, those arms that were always flapping about, and would Sonny still be able to do that? Would he still be able to move like before? Constantly, and fluidly, and vibrantly, and–

And, goddammit, Rafael had spaced out again. He had missed the doctor’s answer. And he couldn’t ask again, not after mocking the question in the first place. Sonny would never let him hear the end of it.

Oh well.

Sonny was smiling, so Rafael chose to assume they wouldn’t have to wait too long. Not that it mattered. Rafael just wanted to get Sonny back home; everything else was unimportant.

Fortunately, that was the one thing Rafael had managed to catch; Sonny was still getting discharged the next morning, so Rafael would only have to survive one more night alone. He could do that.

With some difficulty, but he could.

After giving more detailed instructions on something or other, Rafael didn’t know what, the doctor left and everyone else came back into the room. Rafael didn’t let go of Sonny’s hand.

~ ~ ~

The rehearsal dinner was only a day away and things were already off to a bad start. First of all, Rafael had just been swindled into giving his mother a ride to Staten Island. Secondly, Rafael would have to do the driving himself, since it had barely been two weeks since the shooting and Sonny’s arm was still in a sling, so he still couldn’t drive.

Sonny still couldn’t do a lot of things, and it was starting to affect his mood. He was still on light duty, which he claimed was unnecessary, since he had injured his non-shooting hand, and he was stuck doing paperwork, and taking walk-in reports, and parsing through phone records, and going over surveillance material and, “God, Rafi, it’s just like when I got here 3 years ago, when no one trusted me to do anything except answer the phone”.

Rafael would semi-patiently listen to Sonny’s whining, and he’d even pretend he sympathized, except he really didn’t. In truth, Rafael thought that Sonny being on light duty was a perfect compromise.

Sonny still got to do detective work, except he did it from behind a desk. No chasing suspects around, no bursting through doors without knowing what was behind them, and, most importantly, no getting shot.

Now that Sonny wasn’t on full duty, Rafael could stop worrying about him. Which actually made no sense, because Rafael had never _started_ worrying about Sonny. Not until it was too late; not until after Sonny had gotten hurt.

And the craziest part was that Rafael was somehow still worried, all the time, despite the desk job, because he knew that police officers didn’t have to be out in the field to get injured.

It was like Sonny getting shot had opened the floodgates. Rafael had started thinking about things that never used to cross his mind.

There were courtroom shootings, or altercations in police stations, or random shootings targeting cops, and Rafael was actually thinking of asking Sonny to consider a career change; surely being a lawyer had to be safer. Rafael was a prosecutor and he’d never gotten shot. Hell, maybe Sonny could put criminal law behind him altogether; maybe he could specialize in something harmless like tax law.

Rafael knew better than to say any of this out loud, of course. Especially when Sonny was so irritable. Rafael would just nod in agreement every time Sonny complained; he just hoped his faux-sympathetic faces were convincing.

Not that they needed to be convincing, because Sonny was barely paying attention, too busy constantly brooding. Rafael had almost forgotten what Sonny’s dimples looked like, since Sonny was scowling most of the time, and counting down the days until he could lose that sling and, “God, Rafi, I can’t wait ‘til I can get back out there, I’m sick and tired of being stuck inside four walls, no offense.”

Sonny was always at his gloomiest in the mornings. Never an early riser to begin with, he resented having to get up earlier than normal; unfortunately, the act of getting dressed had become significantly more time-consuming, so Sonny had no choice.

Rafael was all too willing to help, of course, and he did help most of the time. At least when Sonny would let him; more often than not, Sonny would pull away and grumble that he didn’t like feeling incapacitated and that he was a grown man and that he could put his own damn shirt on. Even though he really couldn’t, not without some discomfort.

Rafael remained patient. In all honesty, he didn’t even mind Sonny’s little outbursts. He even liked them a little bit. After all, Rafael always thought that Sonny was at his cutest when he was pouting.

Speaking of pouting, Rafael particularly enjoyed doing Sonny’s hair every morning. Apparently, Sonny’s coiffure needed two functional hands to be perfected and, after many failed one-armed attempts, Sonny had grudgingly allowed Rafael to perform that task in his stead.

Grudgingly, because Rafael liked to take certain liberties with Sonny’s hairstyle, and Sonny did not like that one bit and, “God, Rafi, can you just listen to me for a friggin’ second? The part goes half an inch to the right!”

Rafael would never admit it, but that was often the highlight of his day. Sonny, usually naked or wrapped in a towel, hair still wet, sometimes chest still wet too, skin soft and smooth and pale, trying to sit still as Rafael did his hair or helped him shave.

Handsome as he’d ever been.

Only the bandages ruining an otherwise perfect picture.

But their morning routine wasn’t the only thing that had radically changed; their afternoons were also different. Sonny was almost always home early, Liv sparing him the overtime now that he was injured. Further proof that the current situation was pretty ideal.

For Rafael.

Sonny wasn’t nearly as satisfied, not nearly as happy with all the free time he now had. He’d spend most of his evenings at home, ‘resting’ as per Liv’s orders, and he’d mope about how he couldn’t even go out for a drink with Rollins, like he normally did, because their hours were different now since she was still working well into the early hours.

Rafael had once casually suggested a night out with Sonny’s law school buddies, except Sonny had pouted even harder and he had sighed and he had grumbled some more and, “God, Rafi, that’s not the point. Amanda’s out there saving lives and busting perps and I’m just sitting on my ass all day.”

The only thing Rafael could do, other than laugh to himself, was try to come home at a reasonable hour as well. Which wasn’t easy, and often required superhuman effort, but Rafael still made it happen most of the time.

This was not one of those times.

It was a little after 10 o’clock and Rafael was only just getting home after a very long day. The D.A. had pushed back a scheduled meeting twice, and then a particularly skittish witness had required a lengthy pep talk on top of the standard prep.

Still, as boring and tedious as Rafael’s afternoon had been, it had probably still been better than Sonny’s afternoon. Rafael didn’t even want to imagine how Sonny had spent all those hours at their place, all by himself.

Well, Rafael was about to find out. He got in quietly; he could hear the TV practically from outside, so he headed to the living room, ready to cheer Sonny up.

As it turned out, cheering Sonny up would take some doing.

Sonny was sitting on the couch, sulking and looking pretty disheveled. His pants were off, as were his shoes, but not his socks, for some reason. Sonny had also taken off his jacket, and his tie was on the floor, still looped, but he’d seemingly had some trouble with his waistcoat; the waistcoat Rafael had so painstakingly helped him put on that very morning – just because Sonny was injured, it didn’t mean he couldn’t look good.

The buttons of the waistcoat were undone, and Sonny had managed to ease it off his good shoulder, but the garment had somehow gotten tangled in his sling, and the situation wasn’t helped by the fact Sonny had also unbuttoned his shirt, and had clearly tried to remove that as well, to no avail, and Sonny was basically sitting there, pantless, with a pout on his face and his clothes all twisted up in a knot.

Rafael tried not to laugh.

He failed.

“Wow, Rafi. This is what I get? You’re making fun of me?”

Rafael approached the couch, making sure to avoid stepping on Sonny’s discarded clothes. Sonny looked up, defiant, as if to dare Rafael to scold him for the mess. Rafael did not say a word, and he even managed to contain his laughter.

Barely.

Rafael sat down and immediately leaned in to give Sonny a kiss. Partly because he had missed Sonny, and partly because he was hoping the kiss would improve Sonny’s mood. Sonny kissed Rafael back, eagerly, but still didn’t seem appeased.

Since physical contact hadn’t worked, Rafael went to plan B; targeting the source of Sonny’s vexation. Carefully, very carefully, Rafael started pulling at the straps of Sonny’s sling, until he removed it completely. Then, Rafael helped Sonny out of his waistcoat, and then his shirt, and then his undershirt, slowly untangling the mess while sneaking a few touches here and there.

“Are you enjoying this, counselor?”

Rafael would have denied it, except he _had_ just grazed Sonny’s right nipple with the side of his palm.

“Enjoying what? Getting you naked? Yes, it’s always been one of my favorite things to do.”

Sonny narrowed his eyes, but he couldn’t help cracking a smile. He gave Rafael another kiss, this time a gentler, longer one, and he finally looked less exasperated, and more calm, like Rafael’s words had soothed him and, oh God, Rafael was turning into Sonny. Trying to butter up his partner with corny lines.

But then, hadn’t Sonny turned into Rafael? Cranky and irritable and annoying and, oh God, Rafael was impossible. Was this what Sonny had been dealing with for 2 years? Was that why he constantly made those dumb jokes? To cope? Not to mention, Rafael knew for a fact that he didn’t look half as sweet as Sonny did when he was angry.

Oh well.

Rafael figured he’d stick with this new Sonny-inspired approach, since it was the only thing that was working, so he asked himself ‘what would Sonny do?’

Rafael promptly reached for Sonny’s boxers. Sonny’s smile turned into a grin.

“That’s _my_ move, Rafi.”

Sometimes Rafael truly felt that Sonny could read his mind.

“And being a crabby asshole is _my_ move, Sonny, but I don’t see that stopping you.”

Sonny laughed, for what seemed like the first time in days, and kissed Rafael yet again. Except this time, also for the first time in days, Sonny kissed Rafael like he meant it. Like he didn’t want to stop.

The evening was suddenly looking up. In the previous two weeks, Sonny had been either too sore or too grouchy to really do anything other than kiss Rafael – enthusiastically, because even a sore Sonny was still Sonny, but still.

Now that his arm was a little better, and his mood a little brighter, Sonny finally seemed ready to do more.

A lot more.

Sonny kept kissing Rafael as he shuffled closer, placing his hand on Rafael’s thigh. Then he moved his hand up, higher, between Rafael’s legs, and he squeezed until he made Rafael moan.

Sonny only hesitated for a second, when he tried to lean on his left arm before realizing that he couldn’t. Rafael didn’t want Sonny to dwell on that – or, frankly, to reconsider having sex – so he slipped his fingers underneath the waistband of Sonny’s underwear and grabbed Sonny’s hip, tightly.

Sonny was sufficiently distracted.

Still caught in the kiss, Sonny tried to take off Rafael’s jacket; Rafael helped the process along without making it too obvious. Sonny then started tugging at Rafael’s tie one-handedly, pulling and pulling but not quite getting it loose, and Sonny even leaned back, away from Rafael’s lips, to get a better grip, but he still couldn’t get the tie undone, and he kept getting more and more irritated, and Rafael tried to help again, but it was too late because Sonny was already moving further away and oh n–

“God, Rafi, I can’t do anything. I can’t drive, I can’t sleep without that stupid pillow under my arm, I can’t do my own hair, I can’t dress myself, I can’t take off your friggin’ tie, and I can’t even be a cop. I can’t do the one thing I’m good at.”

Did Sonny seriously think that being a cop was the only thing he was good at? Or, and this was more likely, was that just Sonny’s frustration talking? It was clear that Sonny’s somewhat delicate self-esteem had taken a hit, and Rafael wanted to help him feel confident again.

Fortunately, Rafael knew just the way.

“Sonny, I hate to be harsh,” he started, and Sonny smiled at the preamble, for a split second, before sulking again. As if Rafael had any qualms about being harsh.

“But you need to shut up. This is temporary. Yes, I _do_ have to style your hair and help you get dressed, which has actually done wonders for your look, so I don’t know what you’re complaining about.

“Yes, you can’t drive yet. Which only means that, tomorrow, you get to sit back and relax and fiddle with your dumb watch, while I’ll have to focus on the road and try not to get us in an accident when my mom says something outrageous just to piss me off.

“Yes, you can’t get me naked. Which, I realize, can be very frustrating. But I can get myself naked, which I fully intend to do. In about 5 seconds. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Sonny was no longer trying to hide his smile; he moved closer again, first kissing and then licking at Rafael’s neck. That was more like it.

Rafael took advantage of their position to make one last point. He leaned in, even closer, until his lips were right next to Sonny’s ear.

“Oh and, being a cop is definitely _not_ the only thing you’re good at,” Rafael murmured, using that voice that Sonny loved; growly and breathy and low.

Sonny chuckled and turned his head to kiss Rafael on the lips.

“Yeah?” Sonny asked, between kisses, teasing.

Rafael pulled back a little and took Sonny’s face in his hands.

“Yes.”

Yes, and he looked right into Sonny’s eyes, no longer joking.

Sonny looked right back, and let Rafael paw at his cheeks, touch his dimples. Sonny was good at so many things. He was a good son, a good brother, a good uncle, a good friend, a good colleague, a good cop, a good person, a good partner, no, a great partner, and Rafael had almost lost–

“Jeez, Rafi, you don’t have to lay it on so thick.”

Had Sonny been reading his mind again?

“See, Sonny? You’re also good at being a smartass.”

“Yeah, yeah. Are you taking your clothes off or what?” Sonny asked, smirking, and Rafael shook his head.

“If you let me. If you’re done being flip.”

Sonny nodded, but then his face turned serious.

“We gotta be careful, though.”

Rafael didn’t need to be told twice. Sonny’s physical condition wasn’t the only reason they had yet to sleep together since the shooting. It was only in the previous day or two that Rafael had gotten over his own fear of hurting Sonny by accident. Rafael was still worried, of course, and he intended to be exceedingly careful; he just needed to touch Sonny, soon. He had missed that way too much.

“Oh, um, Rafi, you saw how I couldn’t take my clothes off, before. I haven’t taken a shower yet. So… could you help me out? First?”

Of course.

Funny how Sonny complained about every single thing Rafael helped him with, from getting dressed to shaving to driving to cooking. Funny how Sonny always said he felt powerless whenever Rafael did anything for him. Funny how Sonny wanted to do everything by himself.

Except when it came time for a shower.

Sonny had been eager to receive Rafael’s help in that area since day one – or, well, day three, when Sonny had first been allowed to shower. There was no complaining, no grumbling, no pulling away. Sonny would just let Rafael touch him all over, even in places Sonny could clearly reach himself, without making a peep.

But then, Rafael didn’t exactly mind helping.

With an exaggerated eye-roll, Rafael stood up, helped Sonny up as well, and they started walking to the bathroom.

“I still don’t buy that you can’t shower on your own, by the way. It’s been almost two weeks. You’re milking it.”

“I could slip, Rafi,” Sonny said, eyes laughing, and then he dropped his boxers for dramatic effect.

Rafael had to admit that made a strong statement.

~ ~ ~

“I’m supposed to help _you_ clean up, Sonny, not the other way around.”

Sonny looked up from where he was being impressively creative with a loofah, and grinned.

Rafael smiled back, though he was starting to get impatient. They’d been in the shower for way too long, and Sonny was being handsier than usual, even with only one working hand, and things were getting a little out of control.

Frankly, Rafael wasn’t totally comfortable doing anything in the actual shower stall. Sonny had joked about slipping, but if that really happened, it would not be funny at all. Hell, shower sex was dangerous on a good day, let alone when the more athletic, acrobatic, limber and stretchy half of a couple was injured.

The thing was, Rafael didn’t want to say that. Rafael didn’t want to keep reminding Sonny of his injury. So, he took another page out of Sonny’s book and went for self-deprecation.

“Sonny, not that this isn’t great, because it is, but I’m a couple of decades too old for shower sex.”

Sonny grinned again. With any luck, he would let that slide; he’d pretend he hadn’t seen right through Rafael’s ‘joke’.

“OK, Grandpa, let’s go. Are you gonna help me out of the stall or should I help you?”

Yeah, that wasn’t quite ‘letting it slide’.

Still, Rafael got what he wanted. He and Sonny got out of the shower, they dried each other up – Rafael surreptitiously checking Sonny’s dressing, making sure it hadn’t gotten wet – and they headed for the bedroom. Finally.

It wasn’t until they got to the bedroom that Rafael remembered he had left Sonny’s sling in the living room, so he made a U-turn. Sonny instantly realized why.

“No, Rafi, come on. I don’t wanna put it on. It’ll be in the way.”

Rafael acquiesced. Though he did grab the pillow Sonny always used for sleeping, thinking Sonny could use that instead, to keep his arm steady.

“No, Rafi, seriously? A pillow? Are we in the 11th grade?”

Rafael side-eyed Sonny.

“It’s either this or the sling. Your arm can’t be totally exposed.”

Sonny exhaled and pouted and rolled his eyes and Rafael suddenly had a pretty good idea of what Sonny must have looked like when he actually was in the 11 th  grade. Which was an adorable yet disturbing notion, and one Rafael immediately banished from his mind.

“Fine, I’ll take the pillow,” Sonny grumbled.

Rafael was relieved. He hated to admit it, but he couldn’t stand that sling. It was like a constant reminder that Sonny had gotten hurt. Rafael didn’t know if he’d be able to focus if he had to stare at that thing the entire time. It was bad enough that Sonny’s arm was still covered in bandages.

But then, Rafael wouldn’t be able to focus if he had to worry about avoiding Sonny’s arm, if he constantly had to make sure Sonny didn’t move it inadvertently in the heat of the moment.

Rafael wanted Sonny to be comfortable, and pain-free, and maybe he should go back and get the sling because it seemed sturdier, it would probably do a better job of protect–

Oh.

Apparently, somewhere between Rafael’s initial relief and subsequent panic, Sonny had taken it upon himself to get on the bed.

There Sonny lay, his legs spread just wide enough for Rafael to crawl between, his injured arm dutifully placed on the pillow, his good arm behind his head. There Sonny lay, stretching his long body, looking up at Rafael and smiling.

Rafael had waited long enough.

Kneeling on the bed, Rafael moved up until he found Sonny’s lips. It was a little strange, having to take Sonny’s injury into consideration. It was different, not being able to lean on Sonny, not being able to let Sonny support his weight.

“Looks like you’re gonna have to do all the work for once, Rafi.”

Sonny was grinning again.

Rafael tried not to react, but it was difficult. He _would_ have to do all the work, and it wouldn’t just be for once; it would be for a while, until Sonny’s arm had completely healed, because Sonny still needed time to get better. Sonny had gotten shot, and everyone kept saying it was nothing, but it wasn’t nothing, it wasn’t–

Sonny kissed Rafael’s cheek, his jaw, his chin, lips grazing Rafael’s stubble, little kisses everywhere, all over Rafael’s face, until Rafael finally stopped worrying.

Sonny always had a way of doing that. Easing Rafael’s worries.

Rafael kissed Sonny on the lips, long and hard; harder than he had in two weeks. Rafael needed this. Needed to feel Sonny close to him. Needed to feel how strong Sonny was, how alive. How Sonny never stopped moving.

Sonny was always moving.

Sonny was moving, grinding; the entire, considerable length of his body sliding underneath Rafael, his hips going up and down, his legs pressing against Rafael’s sides. Always shifting. Like Sonny was trying to make up for his injured arm by touching Rafael with the rest of him.

Maybe he was.

Rafael turned his head and kissed Sonny’s neck, Sonny’s shoulder, Sonny’s collarbone; Rafael kissed a line down Sonny’s chest, as his fingers grazed Sonny’s ribs. He licked at Sonny’s lean stomach, placed small kisses around Sonny’s belly button as his hands moved lower, grabbing at Sonny’s thighs.

All the while, Sonny’s hand was resting on the back of Rafael’s head, fingers clenching every few seconds, tugging at Rafael’s hair. Always following Rafael’s movements, never pushing.

Not that Rafael needed the incentive.

Rafael kept kissing his way down Sonny’s body, slowly, rubbing his stubble against the fine hairs low on Sonny’s belly, chuckling as Sonny kept flinching, ticklish.

By the time Rafael got to where he wanted, Sonny was already hard, without having been touched. Just from Rafael’s kisses on his stomach. Then again, Rafael was hard too, just from feeling Sonny’s body against his lips, so he was probably even more desperate.

Oh well. It had been a while.

Rafael took Sonny in his hand, stroking, just for a minute, jaw nuzzling into the crease of Sonny’s thigh, tongue flickering, earning another flinch. Then, Rafael took Sonny in his mouth, Sonny’s sighs and his own moans blending into a low, breathy thrum.

Sonny couldn’t sit still. He wanted to watch. Sonny loved to watch. He kept trying to sit up, but couldn’t do it with one elbow out of commission. His good hand kept oscillating between Rafael’s head and the mattress, Sonny trying to decide if he wanted to prop himself up or push Rafael down.

Eventually Rafael took pity on him, and placed one large hand right at the center of Sonny’s chest, holding him down. Sonny immediately gripped Rafael’s wrist, tight, his hand finally settling. Sonny lay back and stayed put, still restless but always obedient, always eager to do what Rafael wanted.

And what Rafael wanted was to make Sonny forget all about the injury, and the pain, and the discomfort, and the tension of the previous two weeks. Rafael wanted to make Sonny feel good.

So Rafael took Sonny deeper into his mouth, all the way in. Stayed there, forehead pressed against Sonny’s belly, for several seconds. Did it again, and again, humming at the sensation. Going by the sounds that started coming out of Sonny’s lips, going by the way his hips started jerking, going by the vice-like grip he suddenly had on Rafael’s wrist, it was safe to say that Sonny was feeling _very_ good.

“God… I should get shot more often.”

Rafael’s jaw dropped. Which was convenient, because he was able to pull away instantly.

Sonny was entirely motionless, his body tense and his eyes wide.

“Too soon?” he asked, wincing.

Rafael literally closed his eyes and counted to ten.

“I’m sorry, Rafi! You know me and my big mouth. Come on, I’m sorry.”

Rafael opened his eyes to see Sonny, still wincing and looking guilty as hell.

Sonny was sorry. That much was clear. Less clear was the reason; was Sonny sorry because he had said something so callous, or because his dumb joke had made Rafael pull away?

As Rafael looked down at Sonny, all repentant, and loose, and pliant, and gorgeous, and hard, he decided to let it go; exhaling deeply, he ran his hands up Sonny’s thighs.

“Yes, Sonny, it’s too soon to joke about getting shot again when the first bullet hole hasn’t even healed yet,” he snapped.

And then he pinched the inside of Sonny’s right thigh, pretty hard, because Rafael was willing to let this go but not without retribution.

“Ow, ow, OK, too soon, I get it, I get it, I won’t do it again!”

Sonny was cute when he was squirming.

Rafael meant to lean back down, take Sonny back into his mouth, because he was nothing if not magnanimous, but he got distracted by the mark he had left on Sonny’s thigh. Rafael’s eyes were drawn to that spot, where he had pinched Sonny, where Sonny’s pale skin was already turning red.

Rafael couldn’t resist. He did lean back down, except he put his mouth on that spot, he licked at the inside of Sonny’s thigh, he kissed Sonny’s soft, soft skin.

At first Rafael meant to soothe Sonny, to make up for that childish pinch. But the more he licked, the more he kissed away the redness, the more he felt the desire to leave a more permanent mark; to leave his own mark on Sonny. Rafael didn’t want the only thing staining Sonny’s skin to be that bullet hole.

So Rafael sucked on Sonny’s thigh, hard, and Sonny’s earlier joke about being in the 11 th  grade did cross his mind, but he kept going. Sonny inhaled sharply, and then he chuckled, but otherwise kept his mouth shut. Wisely.

When Rafael was done, he kissed that same spot, once, twice, more, and then he pushed Sonny’s thighs up, higher, until Sonny’s legs were spread obscenely wide. Rafael got his hands on Sonny’s ass, used them to spread Sonny even wider, and then he bent down, low, his tongue lapping at Sonny, deep inside.

Sonny gasped, either in pleasure or in surprise; they didn’t do that nearly enough, even though Rafael loved it, and Sonny clearly loved it too, because he was moaning loudly, and his hips were thrusting up and down wildly, and Rafael was having a hard time keeping him still.

Rafael kept licking, and kissing, and squeezing at Sonny’s ass, Sonny’s thighs, only occasionally looking up to watch the expression on Sonny’s face, to take in Sonny’s pink cheeks, Sonny’s flushed chest.

But, fun as it was to watch Sonny lose it, it was time to hurry things along. Rafael had made it a point not to touch himself but, even so, he didn’t think he could last much longer, not when Sonny kept making those sounds.

Replacing his mouth with his fingers, Rafael looked at Sonny as he rubbed, slowly, not yet entering Sonny but clearly about to.

“Come on, what are you waiting for?”

Sonny was struggling to hold himself up as he was looking at Rafael, a hilariously bewildered look on his face. It seemed that Rafael wasn’t the only one who was impatient.

Rolling his eyes, Rafael leaned over Sonny and got to the nightstand. As he did, he couldn’t help glancing at Sonny’s arm. In a split second, Rafael realized why he had opted to stay below waist level – below Sonny’s waist level – the entire time.

Rafael just couldn’t look at it; at the bandages, at that damn pillow, at Sonny’s entire arm, still unnaturally stiff. Rafael didn’t want to remember that Sonny was in pain; he’d much rather stay in denial and get back down, below, where Sonny’s arm was conveniently out of his eye line.

Of course Sonny didn’t know that, so he tugged at Rafael’s neck, eager for a kiss. Rafael obliged him, but only briefly. Moments later, Rafael pulled away and moved downwards again.

Sonny looked disappointed, but that only lasted for a second; until Rafael eased two fingers inside him, gently, Sonny already a little open from before.

Rafael kept using his fingers, pushing in, watching as Sonny breathed heavily. Rafael was surprised to notice that Sonny wasn’t touching himself either, probably because he was embarrassingly close as well, probably because he wanted this to last too.

Feeling playful, Rafael decided to make that a little more difficult. He bent down and took Sonny in his mouth again; Sonny’s hips bucked, once, twice, and Rafael had to press a hand against his stomach to keep him down.

“Ah… Rafi, don’t, I wanna… ah…”

Rafael chuckled but didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop, even if he wanted to, because Sonny’s hand was on the back of his head again, this time pushing down, keeping him in place.

Sonny was moving almost mindlessly. At times he would plant his feet, thrusting upwards, muscles clenching, and at times his legs would give, and he would just lie there, hips barely moving, muscles relaxed, head thrown back, as Rafael kept taking him in deeper, as Rafael kept opening him up with insistent fingers.

Rafael could see what Sonny liked about this. About doing all the work. About focusing solely on giving pleasure. About having someone at your mercy. Like Rafael was always at Sonny’s mercy. Always. Even as Sonny seemed helpless, trembling underneath Rafael, he was the one in control, Rafael’s every move dictated by Sonny’s reactions, by Sonny’s moans.

Sonny’s breaths started coming faster and faster, and Rafael looked up again, watched as Sonny started moving more and more frantically, lithe body slithering on the bed, long legs shaking, hand gripping at the sheets.

Suddenly, and very belatedly, Rafael realized that his idea to tease Sonny hadn’t been very well thought out. Sonny was way too close. There was no way he’d last. Rafael should stop. Rafael should pull away, soon, otherwise he’d never get t–

“Please… please… Don’t stop…”

It was too late. Sonny couldn’t take it anymore. Sonny was begging to come, just from Rafael’s mouth and fingers, and Rafael had started the evening with very different plans but he could never resist Sonny.

Rafael took Sonny even deeper into his mouth and Sonny moaned, once, twice, loud, louder. Rafael curled his fingers, reaching deep inside, again and again, kept sucking and curling his fingers until Sonny cried out, hips stuttering, body arching, mouth open and eyes closed.

Rafael took it. Rafael took all of it, keeping his hand pressed against Sonny’s stomach, feeling Sonny’s abs twitching, and twitching, until they stopped, until Sonny’s hips stopped moving, until Sonny exhaled deeply.

Rafael kept Sonny in his mouth for a little longer, kept sucking, gently, at least at first. Pretty soon Sonny started writhing again, except this time he was trying to move away from Rafael’s lips. Rafael didn’t budge. He just needed another minute. For some reason. He needed another minute to taste Sonny, he needed to touch Sonny, inside, some more, he needed t–

“Wait, wait, wait…”

Sonny was twisting and turning, too sensitive to take much more, held in place only by Rafael’s firm hand.

Rafael gave Sonny one last lick and slowly pulled his fingers out, rubbing soothingly. Then, Rafael placed his hands on Sonny’s thighs, earning one final twitch, and he sat back on his knees to admire his handiwork.

Sonny, spent. Sonny flushed, speechless, body loose, lips red from where he must have bitten them, gasping for air and looking up at Rafael with the widest, bluest eyes.

“I love you, Rafi… Like… so much. You don’t… you don’t even know…”

Rafael laughed as a visibly dazed and barely coherent Sonny struggled to catch his breath.

For the next several minutes, Rafael kept caressing Sonny’s thighs, gently, waiting, until Sonny finally found his voice.

“Wait, you didn’t? You still haven’t… Get up here. I haven’t even touched you yet! You should’ve said something! Come on Rafi, come here!”

Well, Sonny was no longer speechless, though he still wasn’t quite coherent. Rafael understood him just fine, of course. Sonny felt guilty, adorably so, because Rafael was still hard, almost to a painful degree, and Sonny had been too out of it to notice, let alone do anything about it.

Not that Rafael would have let that happen; Rafael had only lasted this long because he had avoided any type of friction. Sonny’s hand on him would have definitely put an early stop to their evening, and Rafael still had so much he wanted to do.

Still chuckling at Sonny’s embarrassment, Rafael moved up, carefully, always holding himself up, until he came face to face with Sonny. Sonny, probably trying to make up for his earlier negligence, immediately pulled Rafael in for a kiss, licked inside Rafael’s mouth, sucked on Rafael’s tongue, sighed quietly.

Rafael had missed Sonny’s lips.

He had missed Sonny’s hands… Sonny’s _hand,_ which was now caressing his face, fingers soft against his stubble. Stubble Rafael had only grown out in an attempt to improve Sonny’s mood, because Sonny loved it, because Sonny loved him when he looked less proper, because Sonny didn’t really care about the ties or the suits or the two-hundred-dollar haircuts and the fancy, straight-razor shaves. Sonny loved him unshaven, and messy, and simple, and real, and–

And Sonny was getting impatient, apparently. Even though he’d already had his turn, Sonny seemed more eager than ever. His hand started traveling lower, grazing Rafael’s chest hair, squeezing at Rafael’s belly, running through the thick hair below.

Rafael wanted to be touched, so badly, but this was still about Sonny, and Rafael just wanted to do everything for him. Give everything to him.

Carefully, Rafael propped himself up on one arm and used his other hand to lift up Sonny’s thigh. Then he pushed inside, easily, because Sonny was so open for him, always so open for him, and so warm, and Sonny sighed so deeply, and pulled Rafael in, wanting more, legs wrapping around Rafael’s waist.

“Tell me if your arm hurts, OK? And try not to move too much.”

Sonny barely managed to respond, his lips firmly attached to Rafael’s neck.

“Wha… Yeah, yeah, OK. Come on!”

Rafael started thrusting, slowly, still holding himself up, always mindful of the fact he couldn’t go as hard as he wanted. Rafael had to be vigilant, in case Sonny’s arm slid from the pillow. He had to keep an eye on Sonny’s face, in case it registered even the tiniest amount of pain, because he wasn’t sure Sonny _would_ tell him if it hurt. Rafael had to be ready to stop, at any moment.

It was a lot more work than Rafael was used to; and that was an understatement, because Rafael had capitalized on Sonny’s incessant need to please way too many times.

Still, it was worth it. Sonny was smiling up at him, content, probably because the balance had been restored. Now it was time for Rafael to enjoy himself, and this was always Sonny’s favorite part; watching Rafael come undone.

Except that wasn’t happening. Rafael was being careful with his thrusts, probably too careful, and he hadn’t yet managed to find a decent rhythm, which was frankly embarrassing, and very unlike him, and Rafael didn’t know how to fix it.

After a while, Sonny tried to move; he reached for Rafael’s arm and tried to tug at it, probably to get Rafael to let go, to lean on him, thinking he could take the weight.

“Don’t, you’ll make me fall,” Rafael muttered, still thrusting way too gently.

Exhaling, Sonny pushed at Rafael’s chest, and Rafael pulled away like he had been burned. Was that why Sonny was trying to move? Was Rafael hurting him?

No, he was not. Because Sonny was rolling his eyes.

“Whoa, calm down, Rafi, I’m fine. I just thought it’d be better if I was on top. That way you won’t have to worry about crushing me. Maybe then you’ll actually get to enjoy it.”

Sonny was pouting.

Rafael felt guilty; he hadn’t realized he’d been so obvious.

In truth, Rafael wasn’t sure a different position would do much good, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. So, Rafael pulled Sonny up and then he rolled onto his back and watched as Sonny slid one leg over him.

“You gotta give me a hand, I can’t exactly keep my balance here.”

Rafael instantly grabbed at Sonny’s waist, mentally berating himself for not helping in the first place, too distracted by the feel of the hairs on Sonny’s thighs as they rubbed against his own.

This was better. And certainly more familiar. Rafael on his back, and Sonny on top of him. Like any other day.

Using his good hand to lean on Rafael’s belly for support, Sonny shifted his body a little, until he was able to sink down on Rafael smoothly. He pushed himself down, once, twice, and then he quickly got into a rhythm, hips moving fast and hard as Rafael held on for the ride, Sonny making sure to smirk at Rafael, as if to say ‘this is how it’s done’.

Rafael reconsidered.

This was not better. With Sonny on top, Rafael could see his left arm practically hanging, bandages right in Rafael’s line of vision. Rafael could see that Sonny’s entire body was in motion, grinding eagerly, except that damn arm, that arm which was clearly still too sore to use and Sonny was clearly still experiencing discomfort but he wouldn’t talk about it, he kept complaining about all the little things but never about the injury itself, never about the pain, and Rafael wondered if–

“You with me, Rafi?”

Sonny gave Rafael a bouncy little jolt with his hips, but the pout had returned to his face.

Dammit.

Rafael tried to get it together. He gripped Sonny’s hips even tighter and he started pushing up, hard, pushing himself deeper into Sonny with some semblance of urgency.

Sonny went with it, went along with this new pace Rafael suddenly decided to set, but he had a look of concern on his face, which didn’t help matters. Why was Sonny concerned, anyway? Everything was fine. Rafael just needed a minute.

Or a few minutes.

_Dammit._

Rafael was getting dangerously frustrated, not to mention softer, unable to focus on anything other than that damn bullet wound, unable to forget the first time he had looked at it, the first time he had helped Sonny change the dressing, the first time he had seen how Sonny’s arm was torn, the skin gouged, everything dark red, everyth–

“It’s OK.”

Sonny had stopped moving; hell, Rafael himself had stopped moving, and he hadn’t even realized.

“I’m sorry, Sonny, I just…”

Sonny nodded and lifted himself up and off of Rafael; then he sat on the edge of the bed, fingers caressing Rafael’s face.

Rafael didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t worry, Rafi. It happens to everyone.”

Rafael literally facepalmed as Sonny cracked up.

Exhaling deeply, Rafael sat up too, sat right next to Sonny. For a moment, Rafael thought they probably looked like one of those erectile dysfunction ads. Forlorn men sitting on the edge of the bed, heads bent down. Strangely, instead of finding that disheartening – not to mention too on the nose – Rafael found it kind of hilarious.

Sonny saw Rafael smiling and smiled back, not knowing why and probably not caring; Sonny always smiled back at him.

Rafael leaned in for a kiss. For many kisses. At least he could do that.

Still smiling, Sonny kissed him back.

This?

This really was better.

Eyes closed. No injuries in sight. No pressure. Rafael and Sonny, both safely sitting up, their thighs touching, like always, kissing softly.

Sonny didn’t push. He just let Rafael kiss him, for what seemed like hours. Rafael kept his eyes closed and just focused on the feel of Sonny’s lips; those full, plump lips he loved so much.

Rafael reached for Sonny’s waist, Sonny’s chest, grazed Sonny’s nipples with his thumbs, this time under no pretense. Sonny flinched again, chuckled again as Rafael kept kissing him, their kiss getting deeper, faster.

Sonny’s good hand eventually started roaming downwards, grabbing at Rafael, squeezing, Sonny smiling into the kiss when he felt Rafael getting thicker in his hand, getting hard again.

Rafael enjoyed the touch, but he was almost afraid to open his eyes, to look at Sonny’s injured arm again. He didn’t want to remember, yet again, how he had almost lost Sonny. How Sonny had gotten shot, how Sonny had gotten lucky, because that bullet could have hit–

“I’m alright, Rafi.”

Rafael opened his eyes with a sigh.

Sonny was looking at him knowingly, having finally understood what was going on.

“You know, at first I just thought you were scared about me hurting my arm in the throes of passion.”

Rafael rolled his eyes, not without some amusement, as Sonny tried to finish his thought.

“But you’re–”

“But I’m scared that you’re going to get shot again, and next time maybe you won’t be this lucky, and then what am I going to do?”

There it was.

Sonny looked at Rafael, eyes soft.

Rafael knew he was being irrational. He knew there was nothing Sonny could say to make him feel better. Sonny was a cop, and that was that. Same as he’d always been. Nothing had changed, just because Rafael had suddenly realized what he’d been stupid enough to ignore for 2 whole years.

“You know I can’t promis…”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll get over it.”

“Stop apologizing, Rafi. Look, we work together. You know what it’s like. You know there aren’t bullets flying every day. We got other things to worry about. I’ve been here almost 3 years, and this was the first time I got shot _at,_ let alone shot. And the girl wasn’t even aiming at me. Last time before that, it was more than 5 years ago and I got shot by some kid with a friggin’ BB gun.

“That’s twice. In my life. I don’t wanna give you platitudes, like, we’re all dying anyway, and you could get hit by a bus tomorrow, and all that. And I can’t tell you I’m not gonna get hurt again. But I _can_ tell you that there’s no point in worrying about it. And that you wouldn’t even be worried right now, not if the thought hadn’t gotten into your head.

“I mean, I know for a fact you never worried about me before. The most upset you ever got was when that sting op fell on our 1-year anniversary, and we had to cancel our reservation last minute, so you ended up paying that huge cancellation fee. Remember that?”

Sonny was smiling fondly. And he was also making a lot of sense.

Rafael hated it when Sonny made sense.

“What’s your point, Sonny? I can’t worry about you retroactively? And preemptively? At the same time?”

Sonny kept smiling.

“My point is, I’m fine, and I’m here, and I love you. And that’s it.”

Rafael had to admit that sounded pretty good. Oversimplified, but good. And comforting. And kind of beautiful.

“Now, I don’t know what prompted this conversation right now, or why we couldn’t have it while wearing clothes, like normal people, but–”

Rafael kissed Sonny to shut him up.

Rafael kissed Sonny, and then he placed a hand on Sonny’s injured arm, for the first time all night, careful not to exert pressure but craving to touch, his fingers traveling up Sonny’s forearm, nearing the outline of the dressing.

“Oh, _that’s_ what it was,” Sonny muttered, as Rafael caressed his arm; fingers brushing the bandage, softly, going all the way up Sonny’s shoulder and then back down again, Rafael’s large palm covering the injured area almost completely, enveloping it.

Rafael felt Sonny’s lips on his cheek, lingering. Soothing. Loving.

“I love you, Sonny.”

“Yeah, no kiddin’.”

Rafael smirked.

Rafael smirked too soon.

“I mean, you gave me a hickey. On my _thigh._ That’s true love right ther–”

“ _Sonny.”_

Sonny grinned.

“I love you too, Rafi. You know that.”

Rafael did kn–

“Because I just told you. I’ve said it, like, 8 times in the last 20 minutes. I lov–”

Rafael scoffed and kissed Sonny again, this time more intently.

Sonny kissed back, and then he lay back, lips only leaving Rafael’s long enough to reach for his pillow, to reposition his hand, either because the pillow was really helping or because Sonny wanted to ease Rafael’s mind. Rafael didn’t ask; he just followed Sonny’s movements, still careful but less worried, somehow.

Rafael knelt between Sonny’s legs, hands gripping at Sonny’s hips, and began considering his next move, when Sonny made the decision for him. Tugging at Rafael’s hand, Sonny didn’t let go until Rafael had come all the way down, until his body was flush against Sonny’s.

Sonny didn’t seem to have any trouble taking Rafael’s weight. He just pulled Rafael by the waist, a little to the side, further away from his left arm, and it was such a small gesture but it made Rafael feel secure. Sonny was actively making sure that his injured arm would stay out of the action. Sonny wasn’t crazy, he wasn’t about to disregard his own personal safety just to get laid.

Probably.

Anyway, Sonny seemed comfortable, and he felt comfortable, and Rafael didn’t know why he’d been so worried before.

This was fine.

This was more than fine. Lying directly on top of Sonny, Rafael could feel Sonny’s heart beating against his own, Sonny’s chest rising and falling.

Rafael started moving to match that rhythm; to match the rhythm of Sonny’s breathing.

Sonny kissed him again, and Rafael found that Sonny’s gasps, coming fast and hot against his lips, gave him an even better beat to follow.

Rafael kept kissing Sonny, grinding, pushing down, and it wasn’t long until he was fully hard again. Sonny spread his legs wider, shifted his hips just right, and Rafael slipped back inside, effortlessly.

It was difficult to get a full range of motion in that position, but Rafael didn’t mind. He kept going, slowly, pushing deeper, harder. Finally feeling like he could give it his all, because Sonny was so solid and strong underneath him.

Because Sonny wouldn’t break. Rafael could believe that now.

Sonny was helping Rafael along, hips moving rhythmically, hand caressing Rafael’s back, up and down, and it was all so slow, and so intimate, their faces only inches apart, and Rafael hadn’t felt this good in weeks.

After a while, Rafael started moving faster, tilted his head until he felt Sonny’s mouth on his neck. But that wasn’t all he felt; Rafael also felt Sonny filling up against his belly, pressed between their bodies, getting harder with each thrust.

In a strange way, that allowed Rafael to stop worrying completely. Now that he was sure that Sonny wasn’t just indulging him out of some sense of obligation, or even love, now that Rafael knew that Sonny was enjoying this as much as he was, he felt free to let go.

Of course, truth be told, Rafael also mentally cursed Sonny for being younger; for still being able to get hard again so fast. Except it wasn’t _that_ fast. In fact, it wasn’t fast at all, because Rafael had taken an embarrassingly long time to…

No.

Rafael cleared his mind and focused on the sensation of Sonny’s body against his, on Sonny being hard for him, again, always, on Sonny’s soft lips and even softer moans.

Reaching down, Rafael put his hand on Sonny, started stroking in time with his thrusts. Sonny’s hips jerked again, his stomach tightened, and he started licking at Rafael’s lips, scratching at Rafael’s back, wanting to touch Rafael in any way that he could.

Rafael would have loved to keep going like that, for a long time, but he was only human and he was getting close. So he took his hand off Sonny, feeling only mildly guilty, and he grabbed Sonny’s hip, tightly, held Sonny still as he kept pushing in.

Sonny didn’t seem to miss Rafael’s hand all that much; he just squeezed Rafael’s ass, pulled Rafael in, even deeper.

And who was Rafael to deny him?

Propping himself up a little, using his forearm for support, Rafael started thrusting in earnest, pushing in, slamming against Sonny, hard and fast and deep.

Sonny was breathing heavily, too far gone to kiss Rafael back, too far gone to even keep his eyes open.

Rafael couldn’t close his eyes if he tried.

Because Sonny was arching his body, rubbing himself on Rafael’s belly, sliding, slippery, moaning with each of Rafael’s thrusts, just taking it, and Rafael wanted to watch every last second.

As if he knew, Sonny opened his eyes, looked right at Rafael, mouth open, cheeks flushed, gasping and grinding, faster, until he came again, against Rafael’s chest.

Rafael meant to wait, he meant to wait until after Sonny had stopped shaking, but he couldn’t. He pushed in one last time, hard, and stayed there, as Sonny was still spurting against him; Rafael pushed in and finally came, deep inside Sonny, thrusting erratically, leaning down to kiss Sonny’s lips, feeling Sonny’s fingers digging into his skin.

There was no telling how much time passed before Rafael caught his breath. Before he stopped gasping into Sonny’s mouth. Next thing Rafael knew, Sonny was kissing his neck, his shoulder, his chest, placing gentle kisses to every part of Rafael that was within reach.

Rafael knew he should pull out, pull away, get himself and Sonny cleaned up, but he didn’t want to. He just wanted to keep holding on to Sonny, tightly, not caring about the mess, chests rubbing together, hips still moving faintly, breaths mixing.

Sonny seemed to be fine with that; he was smiling, almost grinning, and he looked so worn out but in a good way, and Rafael felt almost painfully happy.

But there was a twinkle in Sonny’s eye which threatened to end that happiness prematurely. Rafael knew that look; Sonny was about 2 seconds away from making one of his dumb jokes, so Rafael kissed him again as a precaution, the kiss muffling Sonny’s laughter.

When Rafael did pull away, he didn’t go very far. He moved a little more to the side, so that Sonny wouldn’t have to support his weight anymore, but he kept one thigh draped on Sonny’s legs, one hand absentmindedly touching Sonny’s belly, gliding, smearing, fingers getting wet.

Sonny kept looking at him. Smiling. Dimples showing.

Happy.

Rafael reached for Sonny’s cheek; it wasn’t enough to see Sonny’s smile, Rafael wanted to feel it.

He only realized he hadn’t used his clean hand after he saw the shiny trail he left along Sonny’s jaw, on Sonny’s cheek, on Sonny’s bottom lip when he rubbed it with his thumb.

Sonny licked his lips, maybe instinctively, maybe on purpose. No; definitely on purpose. Because Sonny then turned his head, followed Rafael’s hand with his tongue, licked at the center of Rafael’s palm.

Rafael exhaled as Sonny leisurely licked a line from his palm to the tip of his index finger; as Sonny sucked on his fingers, first one, then two, never breaking eye contact.

Slowly, Rafael pulled his fingers out and reached back down, ran them across Sonny’s belly again, across his own chest, gathering more. Then he reached for Sonny’s lips again, felt Sonny eagerly lapping at his hand.

Rafael pushed one, then two fingers, into Sonny’s mouth; Rafael pushed, in and out, gently brushing at Sonny’s tongue with his fingertips, petting Sonny’s pink lips, letting Sonny clean his hand. Very thoroughly.

When Sonny was done, Rafael leaned in to get another taste, going for the parts Sonny’s own tongue couldn’t reach. Rafael licked Sonny’s cheek, Sonny’s jaw, Sonny’s chin, then moved down to Sonny’s chest, Sonny’s belly, and they had really made a mess because Rafael had to lick all the way down to Sonny’s left hip to get it all.

But that wasn’t all.

Rafael pushed up Sonny’s hips, put his palms on Sonny’s ass, spreading it, again, and he watched as more spilled out of Sonny, dripping, and Rafael bent down to get all of that too, to lick that off of Sonny’s inner thighs, to get every last drop, every last drop of himself as it came out of Sonny–

“Oh, come on!”

Sonny sounded exasperated but he didn’t move, apparently too exhausted to even flinch.

Rafael decided to spare him.

Except, while Rafael was there, between Sonny’s legs, he decided to take Sonny back into his mouth for one last time, for just a second, to clean up every last inch of Sonny, literally, so he took hold of Sonny and licked a stripe from–

“Ah… Rafi… I can’t… I can’t…”

Sonny sounded desperate now, and this time he was flinching, and gasping, and practically whimpering.

Rafael didn’t mean to torture Sonny.

Not much anyway.

So he stopped and moved back up, smirking as he came face to face with Sonny again. Sonny looked a little dazed, and he kept looking down at Rafael’s lips, and he tried to lean in for a kiss, or maybe a taste, but Rafael didn’t let him, gently pushing down on Sonny’s shoulders.

Rafael wanted to look at Sonny for a minute. To look at Sonny’s arm. To make sure that everything was OK. To see for himself that he hadn’t hurt Sonny.

Well, Sonny’s arm looked fine, still safely resting on the pillow, and Sonny looked fine too, and that was an understatement, and Rafael’s heart was still pounding, but it wasn’t from the exertion.

Rafael’s heart was beating for Sonny.

Granted, no one could predict the future. But, in that moment, Rafael knew that he wanted to have many _– many –_ more nights like that. He wanted to spend many more years with Sonny. Rafael hadn’t forgotten his panic-induced thoughts about marriage. He hadn’t forgotten, because he’d never stopped having those thoughts.

Never. Not once during the past two weeks, even though Sonny had turned into a huge pain in the ass, because Rafael loved Sonny, so much, and the endorphins were making him sappy, and now he was having orgasm-induced thoughts about marriage, which were somehow more intense, and Rafael should really take a moment to compose himself because this was not a decision one should make while naked.

And this certainly was not a decision one should make while staring at Sonny, all sated, and beaming, and mellow; his cheeks still pink, his mouth still wet. Glossy almost. Inviting.

Rafael licked a line across Sonny’s lips, made them even wetter, kept swiping at Sonny’s lips with his tongue, slowly, until Sonny got too impatient and grabbed his face, pulled him in for a real kiss.

A long kiss.

A remarkably long kiss.

Rafael opened his eyes just as he felt Sonny moving. Somehow, Sonny had found the energy to start grinding against him again, which was frankly ridiculous, because Rafael would need at least 6 hours to get his heart rate back to normal, let alone move.

“If you even so much as _suggest_ round 3, I’m leaving you.”

Sonny laughed as he finally pulled away.

“I wish. But…”

Sonny had that twinkle in his eye again.

“But what?” Rafael asked, already suspicious.

“But I _am_ gonna need another shower.”

Of course.

~ ~ ~

The drive to the Carisi family home had been uneventful. Pleasant, almost. ‘Almost’ being the operative word. Lucia had mostly behaved, asking Sonny polite questions about his arm, or about Bella and Tommy, and Sonny’s family in general, unable to hide her delight now that she had finally met them and she could put faces to the names.

Of course Lucia had also ‘jokingly’ admonished Rafael, for managing to delay that meeting for 6 whole months, but she had been way too nice about it. Rafael had been surprised to only receive a mild side-eye. Maybe the happy occasion was making his mother more agreeable. Or maybe the rear-view mirror was diluting her glare.

Yeah, it was probably the occasion.

But she wasn’t the only one who seemed more agreeable. Long gone was Sonny’s pout; he had spent the entire car ride with a smile on his face, to the point where even Lucia had commented on it.

Rafael hadn’t had the heart to tell his mother that Sonny’s smile had very little to do with Bella’s wedding.

It was good having the old Sonny back, Rafael had to admit. Waking up to a blinding smile, after two weeks of waking up to a frown; an adorable frown, but a frown nonetheless.

Oh, who was Rafael kidding? It was good waking up to Sonny’s face, period. No matter the expression.

Still, it had been especially fun to wake up to a Sonny so chipper, he had actually asked Rafael to help him get dressed; despite the fact he was going with jeans and a plaid shirt, neither of which required much assistance to put on.

Rafael had helped wholeheartedly.

And now, Rafael was standing outside the Carisi residence, looking decidedly less eager, and extending one elbow to his mother because God forbid that Lucia Barba should appear at a social function unaccompanied.

Sonny led them around the house and into the sizeable backyard, and he hadn’t taken one step before a tiny blonde blur made a beeline for him and latched onto his leg. Beaming, Sonny picked her up.

“Lucia, have you met my niece? This is Anna. Anna, this is Uncle Rafi’s mommy.”

Oops.

Lucia’s eyes widened; she managed to cover well, though not well enough to fool Rafael.

Or, rather, ‘Uncle Rafi’.

“Aren’t you adorable? You look just like your mommy!” Lucia said, as Anna waved at Rafael and tugged at Sonny’s sling.

Sonny hadn’t even noticed Lucia’s reaction. He was too busy bouncing Anna and cooing at her.

“Speaking of, where _is_ your mommy?” Sonny asked, and Anna fussed until he put her back down, immediately upon which she took off, presumably in Bella’s direction. Sonny followed dutifully.

“ _Uncle Rafi?”_

Oh, Lucia was _loving_ this. She was smirking like Rafael had never seen.

“Come on mom, let’s go find… somebody.”

The only thing Rafael wanted to find was a stiff drink, but still, he pretended to walk toward Sonny’s dad and hoped Lucia would follow without further comment.

As a matter of fact, Lucia did not follow; she went up to Sonny’s mom, who was standing a little further away. Even better. With a little luck, Rafael wouldn’t have to interact with his mother again until the drive home.

A few minutes into a genuinely pleasant conversation with Dominick Sr., Rafael spotted Sonny heading for their moms. Not the best idea. Rafael almost tried to stop Sonny, or else join him to make sure nothing incriminating was said, but that seemed like an even worse idea so Rafael stayed where he was.

While keeping an eye on the situation from a distance, of course.

At some point, a third woman approached Sonny’s little group, and she seemed to greet Lucia very enthusiastically. Rafael imagined she was one of Sonny’s aunts, maybe, going by her age; still, he was curious, so he figured he’d ask Sonny’s dad.

“I’m sorry, I’m still trying to keep everyone’s names straight; who is that with my mother?”

“That’s Mary, Tommy’s mom! She’s the only one in his family who stuck by him. She’s a good woman.”

Oh.

So why was she so happy to meet Lucia? Maybe she was just an enthusiastic pers–

“She and your mother are probably exchanging horror stories. You know, about marrying into the Carisi family.”

_Oh._

Rafael wasn’t sure who looked more shocked at what had just come out of Dominick Sr.’s mouth; Rafael or Dominick Sr. himself.

“Not that… You’re not… I know you’re not… Um.”

Sonny’s dad was fidgeting. Rafael would have said something to ease the tension, but he was too busy coming to a terrible realization.

Rafael had been so preoccupied with the fact Lucia would be interacting with the Carisis socially – at a party with an open bar, no less – that he hadn’t considered an even more troubling aspect of the evening.

Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to Rafael that he was currently attending a rehearsal dinner with his boyfriend of over 2 years. With his ‘serious’ boyfriend, one might say.

And that only meant one thing; countless questions and comments and jabs about getting married, because it was ‘about time’. Because this was just the kind of thing semi-distant relatives liked to do on these joyous occasions; badger other couples into getting married too.

Rafael was not prepared for that.

He was not prepared to make small talk about marriage, or to joke about it, or to laugh about it. Not when he was still so torn.

Rafael was still caught between wanting to propose to Sonny every minute of every day, and wanting to take some time to consider it calmly, to wait until he could no longer see Sonny’s wound every time he closed his eyes.

This rehearsal dinner had been a _bad_ idea.

Hell, Sonny’s dad had made one tiny, well-natured joke, maybe it had even been a slip of the tongue, and Rafael was already freaking out, Rafael didn’t know how to respon–

“Hey dad. Rafi, did you know that my mom joined your mom’s book club?”

Rafael was lucky his eyes were already wide, so he was able to pass off his freaked out expression as a reaction to what Sonny had just said.

Or so he hoped.

“I mean, that’s nice, but it’s a little weird. What if they become friends? I don’t know if I want ‘em talking about us all the time.”

Sonny was still rattling on, a big smile on his face, totally oblivious to what had just transpired.

Dominick Sr. took advantage of Rafael’s continued silence.

“Well, it looks like they’re talking about you boys right now! Let me see if I can’t interrupt them.”

Offering an apologetic smile to Rafael, he took off.

Rafael was partially relieved, because the marriage talk had ended before it even began, but he was also concerned; Sonny’s dad was basically Rafael’s favorite person there. The one person he could rely on for a casual, polite, non-intrusive conversation.

Now what? Rafael still hadn’t seen Theresa, and there was no way she wouldn’t tease him. At least he hoped Bella would be too busy hosting to really pester him.

Who could Rafael turn to for some friendl–

“Hey, little guy!”

Noah had suddenly materialized, and he, too, had latched onto Sonny’s leg, because Sonny was some kind of child whisperer, apparently. Anyway, Noah was there, which meant that Liv was there, which meant that Rafael could finally feel optimistic about the rest of his evening.

Sonny smiled at Rafael as he got dragged away by Noah, over to a corner of the backyard where a disconcerting number of small children were yelling and screeching and running – OK, _playing,_ they were playing.

Rafael got himself a drink and started looking for Olivia; he was lucky Bella had invited her too, as a thank you, so Rafael knew he’d have an ally of sorts as he struggled to interact cordially with Sonny’s extended family.

Not to mention Lucia.

The search for Olivia proved harder than Rafael had imagined; instead of walking around, he seemed rooted on the spot. Rafael was distracted by Sonny’s smile; by Sonny’s happy face as he sat on the grass, playing with little Noah and little Anna who seemed to have become instant buddies.

Rafael could never understand how Sonny willingly spent hours with small children without getting bored. Every time they visited Anna, Rafael would say hi to her, maybe tickle her for a second as he gave her a stuffed toy or a book, and then he’d spend the rest of his time chatting with Bella – and by ‘chatting’ he meant ‘dodging questions’, of course. Whereas Sonny…

Sonny was different. Different than Rafael. In many ways. Almost in every way. Maybe that was why Rafael–

“Rafael! Finally, a familiar face.”

Liv had apparently saved Rafael the trouble and had found him first. Unfortunately, Tucker was with her, but Rafael had long resigned himself to the Lieutenant’s constant presence around Olivia.

“Hey, Liv. Enjoying the festivities?”

“Noah seems to be having a blast, that’s more than enough for me. How about you? What have you been up to?”

‘Staring at Sonny like a love-struck teenager,’ was what Rafael didn’t say.

“Trying to avoid Sonny’s sisters, mostly.”

Tucker smirked.

“Why? They giving you grief about not tying the knot? Sonny’s a catch, you know. You gotta move fast, before somebody else snaps him up.”

Olivia grinned, as Rafael smiled the absolute fakest smile he could muster.

To his shame, Rafael also felt an irrational jolt of jealousy at the thought of someone else ‘snapping Sonny up’. Which was preposterous. What was Tucker even talking about? If anyone was going to snap Sonny up, it would be Rafael. Obviously.

“Liv, doesn’t Noah count as your plus one? Are you sure you were allowed to bring the Lieutenant? What would Miss Manners say?”

Before Tucker could answer, Rafael saw Lucia approaching. The evening just kept getting worse.

“Olivia! I haven’t seen you in so long! Is this your date?”

It was Rafael’s turn to smirk as Liv and Tucker both greeted Lucia. Awkwardly. His smirk got even wider as Lucia started asking how long they had been together, and what did Tucker do for a living and, “Oh, another police officer? There’s so many of you, it makes me nervous.”

If Rafael had to be uncomfortable, it was only fair that everybody else was as well.

And never let it be said that Lucia was biased; for her, everyone was a target.

“Olivia, that’s your son playing with Sonny’s niece, isn’t it? Look at Sonny, he’s so good with them. I had no idea, Rafi.”

Of course Rafael was the target most of the time.

Tucker smirked again. Rafael wondered if it was weird that he was keeping a tally of their smirks.

“He really is great with kids. Noah loves him,” Olivia provided, very unhelpfully, as she smirked at Rafael too.

Rafael couldn’t believe he had been relieved to see her. What a fool he’d been.

Just then, Rafael finally managed to catch Sonny’s eye. Sonny’s smile faded, perhaps because he was insightful enough to realize that Rafael was being cornered, and in dire need of assistance.

Or, perhaps, because he noticed Rafael’s blatantly obvious look of despair.

Not two seconds later, Sonny came up to them, for once without any children attached to his extremities.

“Hey Sarge! Ed, thanks for coming!”

Tucker smiled, genuinely – which Rafael still found unsettling, for the record – and patted Sonny on the back.

“Don’t mention it, kid. How’s the arm?”

“It’s better. It’s good. It barely hurts anymore. Hey, maybe if you put in a good word for me, with the Sarge, I can go back to full duty? Soon?”

Sonny looked at Liv as he spoke, sounding hilariously eager. And, if Rafael was honest, kind of adorable.

Olivia didn’t seem to feel the same.

“Nice try, Carisi. Before the doctor clears you? Over Barba’s dead body.”

Dammit.

Some friend _she_ was. OK, so maybe Rafael had asked Liv to make sure that Sonny only returned to full duty when he was completely healed. Like, _completely._ Maybe Rafael had asked Liv to make sure that Sonny would take it easy until then. _Very_ easy. So what? There was nothing wrong with that. Why did she even bring it up?

Sonny looked at Rafael, and he grinned a little too widely.

“Why are you smiling, Sonny? She said no,” Rafael snapped.

Sonny grinned even wider.

Dimples and all.

Rafael wanted to kiss him.

Not as Tucker, Liv and Lucia were gawking at them, but still.

Thankfully, Bella beckoned everyone to the small tables scattered around the backyard, so that the barbecue portion of the rehearsal barbecue could commence.

Everyone started looking for their assigned tables, as Rafael absently reached over and brushed a hand over Sonny’s butt, where blades of grass were still sticking to his jeans.

~ ~ ~

“OK, Rafi, time for me to make the toast!”

Rafael looked up from his plate.

“Must you?”

Sonny grinned, threw out a “Yep!” and stood up.

Rafael had actually forgotten about the toast. After the shooting, Sonny hadn’t really been in the mood to work on new material. He hadn’t tried out any new punch lines, in person or via text; in fact, Rafael hadn’t even seen Sonny use his legal pad at all.

Did that mean that Sonny was about to use his old ‘jokes’? His discarded ‘jokes’? The ‘jokes’ Rafael had rightfully maligned? Because he actually had a sense of humor, unlike Sonny?

“Everyone knows I never liked Tommy…”

Oh no.

“…”

OK, so people laughed, Tommy included. Of course they did. The audience was clearly biased. But this was one joke. Was Sonny really going to continue like that? Was he aware that Lucia was in attendance? Or Olivia? Was this the impression Sonny wanted to make when his boss was watch–

“Seriously though, I didn’t always have the highest opinion of Tommy, but he changed my mind. He’s been a great dad to Anna, and I know he’ll be a great dad to the little one on the way. And he’s great to Bella too, now that he got his act together, huh Tommy?

“Anyway, we all know he’s made some mistakes, but that doesn’t matter. Because, when push came to shove, Tommy stood up for himself, and he stood up for Bella. He stood up for his family. For our family.

“Tommy, I always wanted a brother, and now I got one. Here’s to you and Bella.”

Oh.

That was…

Rafael was just glad that all eyes were on Sonny. At least he could be certain that no one had noticed his embarrassingly dreamy expression.

No one but Lucia, probably, but Rafael wasn’t about to look at her and find out.

Sonny started walking back to their table, back to Rafael, but Tommy stood up and stopped him.

“I just wanna say that a lot of people gave up on me over the years. All my old friends. My entire family, basically, except for my mom. But Bella didn’t, not once in the 12 years we’ve been together. No matter what, she never gave up on me.

“And neither did you, Sonny, even when you didn’t like me, ‘cause Bella loved me, somehow, and you wanted your sister to be happy. And that’s all I want. And… You stood up for me too, when you didn’t have to. So. Thank you.”

Tommy hugged Sonny, and it was far less awkward than Rafael would have imagined. After Bella hugged her brother too, for a few seconds too long, Sonny finally made his way back to their table.

All Rafael could think of, as he looked at Sonny sitting next to him, was ‘I love you,’ but he would never say something so sentimental in public.

“I love you, Sonny.”

Sonny smirked.

Probably because Rafael had whispered that, very quietly; had muttered it, offhandedly almost, just to make sure that Liv and Tucker wouldn’t hear, from where they were sitting off to his right.

“I love you too, Rafi. By the way, how many have you had? Or is it the wedding stuff that’s making you sappy?”

“I hate weddings,” Rafael snapped. Fondly. He snapped fondly.

Sonny laughed and was clearly about to respond – call out Rafael’s lie, probably – when Theresa approached their table.

Rafael braced himself.

“What’s that, Sonny? You always wanted a brother? Funny, cause me and the girls _never_ wanted a brother.”

Oh. Just a little joke between siblings. Rafael was relieved.

“Aw, come on! You know I wouldn’t trade you for the world!”

Theresa narrowed her eyes at Sonny. Rafael suspected his relief would be short-lived.

“Oh, just a heads up; Bella told me that tomorrow she’ll be aiming the bouquet at you.”

Sonny pursed his lips.

“Yeah? She said that? Well, you tell Bella that if that bouquet doesn’t land on Gina’s lap, there’s gonna be an international incident. You and I both know that Gina’s next engagement has to stick.”

Theresa and Sonny both cracked up, but Rafael didn’t. He was a little hung up on the word ‘engagement’, for some reason. Rafael liked the sound of that.

And Theresa could clearly tell, because she was giving him an eerily familiar look. A knowing look. First Dominick Sr., then Theresa; all the Carisis were developing the ability to read Rafael’s mind, or so it seemed.

“How ‘bout _your_ engagement, Sonny?” Theresa practically chirped, and Rafael’s head snapped up distressingly fast.

“I mean, wait till you hear my toast at your wedding. I plan to describe, in vivid detail, how I hit on Rafael at your graduation, and how he looked at me with panic in his eyes, just like he’s looking at me right now, and how he tried to let me down gently, without hurting my feelings, becaus–”

“Get outta here, Theresa!” Sonny barked, feigned irritation in his voice but eyes full of mirth. “Isn’t your doctor waiting for you? Oh wait, I meant _my_ doctor.”

Rafael didn’t understand what Sonny was talking about; not until he glanced at Theresa’s empty seat, a few tables over, and saw that Sonny’s dickish doctor from the hospital was also in attendance, apparently as Theresa’s date. Huh.

Theresa walked away, still laughing, as Rafael considered her words, so casually uttered; ‘your engagement,’ ‘your wedding’. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like it was expected. Like it would be welcome. Wanted.

Normal.

Rafael still got emotional sometimes, thinking he now had that option. An option he never thought he’d have, growing up. And now here he was, laughing about it. Thinking about it.

Sonny’s wedding. Rafael’s wedding. _Their_ wedding.

But, like Theresa had said, where there was a wedding, there was a wedding toast. Several of them, actually. Rafael hadn’t even thought about that. He could only imagine what kind of terribly inappropriate things people would come up with.

Not just Sonny’s sisters, either. Liv would have to say something, of course, and maybe she’d keep it classy, or maybe she’d tease Rafael mercilessly; wouldn’t be the first time. And Rollins? Who messed with Sonny like it was her job? Would she get to speak?

Would Rafael get a veto? But if he did, should he use it on Rollins or Theresa? Maybe he could veto them both. And Lucia too, while he was at it. Amaro probably wouldn’t want to speak anyway, so that was good. Maybe Fin could just say a few words and they’d call it a day.

There was so much material, that was the problem. All the makings of a ‘hilarious’ toast.

Rafael and Sonny had started off on the wrong foot, and that was an understatement; Rafael had spent months dissing Sonny openly, in front of all their colleagues, like a jerk. All Rollins would have to do was repeat some of his early taunts, like ‘booyah, Fordham Law,’ to embarrass Rafael to the point of mortification.

And what if someone wanted to get a little revenge, for being left out of the loop? Because Rafael and Sonny had kept their relationship quiet at first? What if Bella regaled the wedding guests with the tale of her labor, when she found out that Sonny and Rafael were dating while she was having contractions in the backseat of Rafael’s car?

Or, what if–

“Don’t worry, Rafi. If I see that bouquet heading my way I’ll dodge it.”

_Don’t._

That’s what Rafael wanted to say _._

_Catch it._

That’s what Rafael almost said, except he wasn’t that daring, so he didn’t.

Not with his lips, at least; because Rafael suspected his eyes had betrayed him.

Because Sonny was smiling. Not smirking, not teasing; Sonny was just smiling at Rafael warmly. Earnestly. Love in his eyes.

Rafael almost popped the question, right then and there. Only reason he didn’t, was because he didn’t want to upstage Bella at her own rehearsal dinner. That, and he also didn’t want to doubly upstage Lucia, who was already displeased by the fact she was the second most important person at the party; by her own estimation, of course.

But then, maybe they wouldn’t mind. Maybe they’d even encourage it. Maybe they’d be happy, because they both loved Sonny, everyone loved Sonny, and Rafael loved Sonny too, so much, and–

And this was not the time for major life decisions. Not so soon after Sonny had gotten hurt, not mere hours after the night they’d had, not during a surprisingly charming rehearsal dinner.

Rafael didn’t want Sonny to think his proposal had been influenced by worry or by fear, by sex or by Sonny’s lips, by the romantic atmosphere or by the cheap bear.

No.

Rafael would just wait until the dust settled. Until his life with Sonny went back to normal. Until that damn sling was gone. Until they could commemorate a proposal like it deserved, without that stupid pillow getting in their way.

Rafael would just wait.

After all, it was only a matter of time. There was no doubt in his mind. Or in his heart – and Rafael was fully blaming the cheap bear for _that_ clunker, by the way. Rafael would get around to asking, sooner or later.

Unless, and perhaps this was more likely, going by the way Sonny was looking at Rafael...

Unless Sonny asked him first.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at poipoi1912.tumblr.com!


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